


Holly and Hawthorn, Thistle and Thyme

by bryoneybrynn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bryoneybrynn/pseuds/bryoneybrynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, Harry can’t shake the feeling that something is very wrong with him and he has a terrible feeling he knows what that “something” might be. He has a terrible feeling Malfoy might know, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mijeli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mijeli/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Storm-Broken Trees](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/136551) by mijeli. 



> This was a fest fic for hd_remix. The only piece that I officially remixed for this work is a wonderful picture with text called, Storm-Broken Trees (http://hd-fanart.livejournal.com/275670.html).That said, this story was heavily influenced by two other pieces of Mijeli’s, though one I took out of context from the original and the other I was greatly inspired by but never actually worked into my story, so neither was actually remixed. The first is the last panel of a multi-image work, Draco’s Wrists (http://hd-fanart.livejournal.com/347680.html) where Draco is in a hospital bed and Harry is sitting at the foot of the bed. The entire plot of this fic was inspired by this image. The second is the final panel in these sketches (http://hd-fanart.livejournal.com/308307.html). To me, it conveys such a sense of peace and contentment, exactly the place I wanted the boys to land at the end of this fic, and I loved the sense of Draco providing this for Harry. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take the story quite that far but as you read, feel free to envision this as the ultimate ending. :)
> 
>  
> 
> Thistle is used in spells for strength, protection, healing, exorcism, and hex-breaking. Thyme is used for spells promoting health, healing, sleep, psychic powers, love, purification, and courage. 
> 
> Thank you to my betas dysonrules, snarkyscorp, and marguerite26 for their awesome speedy work and to nursedarry for her britpick.

Holly and Hawthorn, Thistle and Thyme

In the weeks following Voldemort’s defeat, Harry was aware of very little. Everything was chaotic, unstable. It seemed like people were always moving, appearing suddenly, then being called away just as quickly. Each arrival and departure was marked by high emotion, by hugs and exclamations and tears. Harry was no exception to the chaos; he was constantly on the go, whirling from one thing to the next. The days passed in a blur of changing faces and locations. The only constant was the grief. Whether he was sitting at the Weasleys’ breakfast table trying to ignore Molly’s red-rimmed eyes and George’s deadened stare, standing casket-side saying good-bye to Colin Creevey, or perched uncomfortably on Andromeda’s sofa, a screaming baby in his arms, talking about care and custody and other things that, at seventeen, seemed completely foreign to him, the grief was everywhere, so thick it was like he waded through it.

Harry stumbled from place to place as best he could, letting himself be whisked from the Ministry to St Mungo’s to Hogsmeade. Everywhere he went, he felt ill-prepared and awkward, but he seemed to say the right things, do the right things, or at least he assumed he did because no one said anything to the contrary. At night, when he was back at the Burrow, he found it hard to remember any of it – where he’d been, who he’d spoken to, what he’d said. Everything tangled together in his mind. When he looked in the mirror, he saw someone he didn’t recognise – a face too thin, a mouth that looked as though it hadn’t smiled in years, and eyes that never quite seemed to focus. He knew he should be worried about this, upset by all the things going on around him. He should be sad, he should be grieving, he should be angry. He didn’t feel any of those things, though. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all.

When the funerals were over and the trials began, however, things began to change. Harry was a star witness at many of the trials, called on to provide testimony again and again. Week after week, he sat before the Wizengamot in a hard wooden chair recounting what he had seen through Voldemort’s eyes and through his own. He stared down Death Eater after Death Eater, met their sneers with a steady gaze, refusing to back down. Though they were found guilty, each and every one of them, Harry gained little satisfaction from it and certainly no peace. Instead, as he sat in the courtroom and saw the accused, the witnesses, and the Wizengamot all gathered, something cut through the numbness and ignited his anger. It infuriated him that they were there at all, that it should ever have come to this, that these crimes had ever been committed in the first place. These men, their arrogance, their cruelty, their savagery, were an affront to everything Harry believed in, everything he was. That they had ever been allowed to come so close to power made him shake with rage. 

Sometimes, at night, when the Weasleys were all in their beds and the stars were bright in the sky, Harry found himself out in the garden, his anger shrieking through him. He didn’t know how to curb it, how to channel it, how to do anything to lessen it at all, and so he just paced back and forth in the moonlight, the gnomes peeping at him from between the cabbages and owls winging overhead, dark shadows against the night sky. Some nights he was only outside for fifteen minutes. Others, he was still pacing when dawn broke over the horizon. He couldn’t say it helped, really, but it got him through, let him sit with the Weasleys at the breakfast table, let him sit before the Wizengamot at the trials, let him walk the halls of the Ministry, the site of so much horror and loss.

It was only a stopgap solution though, and as spring gave way to summer, his anger only grew. It spread beyond the trials and the Ministry and the Death Eaters, turned on those around him, the people he loved. At night, when he was done pacing, or sometimes before, he would lay in bed and hear the sound of sobbing, muffled through doors and floors, but always present in the Burrow. There was always someone grieving, someone breaking down in the bleak hours between midnight and dawn. Harry would toss, twisted in his blankets, his gut churning and his throat tight, and he would wish they would stop, wish they would shut up, or at least cast a silencing charm and spare the rest of them having to listen. 

One night when it seemed to go on and on, first Molly, then Ginny, then Arthur, Harry couldn’t take it anymore.

“Shut up,” he hissed into the darkness. “Just shut the fuck up already.”

No one heard him. On the other side of the room, in his own bed, Ron snored steadily on, and Harry’s whisper was too quiet to travel beyond the small room. No one heard him, but the shame was still so thick it almost choked him.

His days and nights went like this, and while Harry knew he was miserable, it wasn’t until his eighteenth birthday that he began to wonder if there might actually be something wrong with him. 

Because life seemed determined to be as difficult as possible, Lucius Malfoy’s trial began on Harry’s birthday. The whole family went to the Ministry, as both Ginny and Harry were slated to give testimony. Harry knew he would likely be back several times before it was over, recounting the events that occurred in the Department of Mysteries and Malfoy Manor, but for that first day there was Flourish and Blotts and the Chamber of Secrets, and as Harry stared into Lucius Malfoy’s stony face, he found it was quite enough to be getting on with. Ginny seemed to feel the same if her stiff spine and pale face were anything to go by. 

When the day was over, they went back to the Burrow. Molly prepared dinner, making far too much food, as if stuffing them with roast chicken and potatoes could make them forget the horror of the Chamber. Harry and Ginny were both quiet as everyone found a place at the table. Molly, Bill, and Fleur chatted a little too brightly in an attempt to make up for the dark cloud that hung over everyone. Their voices grated on Harry and he found his shoulders pulling up higher and higher as the meal wore on. He dug his fingernails into the worn wood of the table’s edge and forced himself to sit through cake and presents because these people were his family and he loved them and he was grateful that they had accepted him into their home and their hearts. But as soon as he was able, he made his excuses, and all but ran up the stairs to his room, feeling the burn of eyes on his back with every step. 

Two a.m. found him still awake and pacing again in the garden. Ginny found him, too, appearing before him in a thin cotton nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders, her feet bare. She looked at him and the need was plain on her face, and so Harry pulled her down onto the soft summer grass and kissed her. He kissed her soft lips and the curve of her cheek. His kissed the graceful line of her throat and the freckled skin of her shoulder. He pulled off her nightgown and kissed her everywhere, trying to be gentle, trying to be good to her, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He felt awkward and stupid and he wished they could stop. They couldn’t though, and so he kept kissing her, his lips on hers as he lined up and pushed into her, hoping that he wasn’t hurting her, unsure what to make of her soft gasp and the way her hands tightened on his shoulders. 

Afterward, he could feel her disappointment. Whatever it was she had come looking for, he hadn’t given it to her. As she bit her lip and avoided his eyes, resentment flared because, really, what more could she ask of him, could any of them ask of him, than what he’d already given? When was it finally going to be enough? They drifted back inside and to their beds with little said between them. Harry couldn't sleep though, and with every minute that ticked by in the stillness of Ron’s room, Harry’s mood darkened. 

When the morning sun finally peeked through the window, Harry hadn’t slept at all. He stumbled downstairs, almost eager for the chance to go to the Ministry, anything to escape the Burrow and the Weasleys and Ginny’s expectations. 

All too soon, the rest of the family was up and moving about, joining Harry at the table when he’d much rather have been alone. Ginny was the last to arrive and she gave Harry a shy, hesitant smile. He didn’t return it, couldn’t, because the second he’d seen her, he’d had the sudden and _strong_ urge to hurl his plate at her head. He could see it clearly, could picture himself scooping it up, eggs and toast sliding down onto the table top, cocking it back and launching it. Bile burned at the back of his throat. 

He staggered to his feet.

"Harry?" Ron was watching him with a questioning look on his face. "You all right, mate?"

Harry didn't reply. He lurched away from the table. He could feel them all looking at him.

"Harry, dear, what's wrong?" Molly asked. 

The concern in her voice was plain and Harry knew it was genuine but for some reason hearing it set his teeth on edge. He imagined turning and telling her the truth, telling how he'd fucked her daughter in the garden only hours ago and now wanted nothing more than to throw china at her head. He imagined telling her how clearly he could see it, the way the plate would break against Ginny's head, the jagged edges tearing at her skin, blood running down her cheek and dripping onto her neck.

He lunged toward the stairs and took them at a run. 

He ignored the concerned voices that called after him, ignored the knocks on the bedroom door that followed moments later. He huddled under his blankets and tried to block it all out. Eventually the door opened. Someone crossed the room, footsteps soft and careful, and sat on the edge of his bed. 

“Harry, what happened?” It was Charlie and for some reason, that made Harry feel worse. Not Ginny, not Ron, not Molly, but Charlie. 

“Harry, talk to me. What can we do to help?”

But Harry ignored him, too. He couldn’t talk to Charlie, couldn’t listen to him, couldn’t even think clearly, because in that moment when he pictured himself throwing his plate at Ginny, a thought had come into his head, a doubt, insidious and terrifying, and it left no room for anything else.

***

“And how are you today, Mr Potter?”

Harry smiled wearily at the young mediwitch, Lisa. He’d asked her to call him Harry more times than he could count, but each time she blushed and shook her head. She couldn’t be more than five years older than him and it seemed idiotic to him to be so formal, but he didn’t have the energy to keep arguing with her about it, and so he’d stopped saying anything. 

“It’s a beautiful day outside,” she said as she flipped through his chart. “Hints of autumn in the air. My favourite time of year. Though somehow, it always feels strange not to be on the Hogwarts Express on September first.”

She pulled out her wand and passed it over his body. Harry watched as colours flared over him, now red, now green, now blue. He knew they represented something about organ functioning, blood cell count, and the presence or absence of infection, but in the month he’d been in St Mungo’s he had yet to figure it out. He was sure it wasn’t all the complicated; he just couldn’t be bothered. 

Lisa made several notations in a chart and then took Harry’s wrist in her hand. She cast a Tempus charm, counting off heartbeats as the second ticked by. “Well, whatever has you, Mr Potter, it hasn’t got your heart. Sixty beats per minute. Just where it should be.”

After he’d calmed down enough to crawl out from under his blankets that day at the Burrow, he’d asked Charlie take him to St Mungo’s. Everyone had wanted to come, of course, and had had a million questions, but he’d put them off and gone with only Charlie. And he’d even said good-bye to Charlie once he’d checked in with the Welcome Witch in reception. They’d all been in since, though, with worried expressions and questions they couldn’t quite help asking. Except for Ginny. She had been noticeably quiet. Her face had told him everything he needed to know, though. As she’d sat at his bedside, hands clenching a pillow in her lap, the struggle between concern, confusion, and anger was plain to see. Part of him had wanted to reassure her. A much larger part had just wanted her to go away.

It had been hard to know what to do. He hadn’t wanted them there – he didn’t want anyone he cared about around him until he figured out what was going on. But he also hadn’t been able to explain without telling them everything. So he’d dodged their questions as best he could and they’d all pretended there wasn’t any tension between them. He’d just been glad Hermione was still in Australia with her parents – he was quite sure he couldn’t have put her off no matter how hard he tried. Even without her there, he’d known it was only a matter of time before things reached the point where they couldn’t pretend anymore. 

Fortunately, a week into his stay, the universe seemed to intervene on his behalf. Another patient had started stalking him, sneaking into his room at all hours, taking photos of him when he wasn’t looking, even watching him sleep. St Mungo’s had assigned him a guard and restricted access to his room. A week after that, there had been two incidents of people tampering with his food – one time it was a love potion in his mashed potatoes, another time it was a poison in his pumpkin juice. After that, they’d moved him to a private room at the end of a secluded hallway and swapped the guard at his door for an Auror. When they’d recommended to Harry he not have visitors until they figured out who, exactly, was after him (for whatever reason), Harry had agreed readily, glad to have an excuse not to have to see anyone.

A limited number of staff had been cleared to work with him. Harry’s case was managed by two Healers – Greenley and Rottman – and a team of four mediwitches and wizards. Kingsley had screened them all personally, along with the Aurors who worked guard duty on the door. The Ministry was in shambles in the wake of the war. There were few competent people who could be trusted and Kingsley was taking no chances where Harry was concerned. There were still many Death Eaters at large, not to mention unscrupulous reporters and overzealous fans who’d take any chance to get close to Harry. Lisa was the youngest of his care team and the most prone to being impressed by his name. Despite this, she was his favourite; there was something about her that made him think of his early days at Hogwarts, before life became so complicated. Though he suspected, were he feeling a bit more himself, Gil, the blond mediwizard with the broad shoulders and full lips, might take top spot as his favourite, albeit for entirely different reasons. 

Harry sighed inwardly. His lack of libido was just one more thing on the long list of things that were wrong with him. One more step removed from a normal eighteen year old male. His stomach twisted. In truth, sex was about the furthest thing from his mind these days. Or at least positive thoughts about sex. He often thought about that night with Ginny and the day that followed, and every time he felt that same sickening rush of anger and resentment, followed quickly by guilt and shame. It wasn’t Ginny’s fault. He knew it wasn’t. She was perfect. He was the problem. He was the one with this thing inside him, making him into a monster.

“Healer Greenley will be in later today to see you,” Lisa continued, oblivious to Harry’s descent into self-loathing. “He’s arranged to have a specialist come from Edinburgh to examine you. Meredyth Merriweather. Apparently, she’s top notch, at the very cutting edge of some impressive investigative techniques. I’m sure she’ll be able to get to the bottom of things quick enough.”

Harry doubted that very much. No one was going to find anything because there was nothing to find. He knew what his problem was. He shut his eyes, trying to push the thought away.

“Tired, Mr Potter?” Lisa asked, apparently misinterpreting his closed eyes. “Still not sleeping well?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her, unwilling to let the opportunity pass. “Dreamless Sleep would help.”

She frowned. “You know you’re at the limit already.”

It was a conversation they’d had many times before. Since coming to the hospital, Harry was frequently plagued by nightmares. It had reached the point that he’d been unable to sleep, his anxiety increasing as night came on, keeping him tossing restlessly all night long. Healer Rottman had given him Dreamless Sleep to help him catch up on his rest. Since then, Harry requested it every night, but the hospital had a firm limit of no more than three doses a week. Apparently, blocking dreams over the long-term interfered with the body’s restorative functions. Frankly, Harry thought nightmares that woke him, screaming, interfered more.

“I know. It just helps...”

Lisa sighed and shook her head. “I’ll talk to the Healer and see what he says, okay? It’s the best I can do.”

“Thanks, Lisa.”

“You know,” she said, giving him a pointed look. “It might do you some good to get out of this room once in a while. I’m sure the Auror on duty would be only too happy to escort you. Probably be glad for the change in scenery. A bit of fresh air and exercise will likely do you more good than any potion.”

“Who’s on the door today?”

“Abrams,” Lisa said, and smiled. “I just love him. Such a sweetheart. He’s always got a smile for me when I come in in the morning. He’s trading off with Mills at four, though.” She crinkled her nose – apparently she didn’t hold the same good opinion of Mills. 

Harry didn’t say anything. Since the Aurors were stationed outside his door, he never really saw them. He kept the door closed and never left the room if he could help it. This was a sore point with his entire team, but Harry didn’t care. He had no desire to leave the room and, moreover, it was safer for everyone if he just stayed away from people as much as possible.

“All right,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “I’ll be in to check on you later. And I’m serious, think about getting out today. Even just to walk up and down the halls. You’ll drive yourself crazy sitting here staring at the walls all day.”

“I’ve got books, magazines, the wireless.”

But Lisa just shook her head. “What are we going to do with you?” she said, not unkindly.

Then she was out the door, waving good-bye as it closed behind her. But Harry was stuck with her question. He had no idea what they were going to do with him, what they _could_ do with him. In fact, he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake in coming to St Mungo’s. More and more, he was starting to think there was only one solution to his problem.

***

Meredyth Merriweather didn’t have any answers. Harry had expected as much. It was the fourth such person that had been to see Harry during his time at St Mungo’s. It was always the same.

She stood at the end of Harry’s bed, a file in her hand and a practised smile on her face. “Healer Rottman tells me that you’re concerned that you were negatively impacted by your encounter with You-Know-Who in May?’

“That’s right.” It was as close to the truth as Harry was willing to come. 

Merriweather nodded, looking thoughtful. “Certainly there was some complex magic at play. To survive not one but two Killing Curses, along with the ancient protective magics, the numerous curses and injuries...”

She rattled on, reciting everything she’d read in Harry’s file to him as if he wasn’t the one who’d reported it all in the first place. When Harry had first arrived, he had detailed everything that had happened during the final battle, all the spells he’d been exposed to, the magical elements involved in the situation. Everything except the part about the Elder Wand and the Horcruxes. He didn’t provide that information then and he didn’t provide it now. He knew he was making it harder for the Healers to find the answers he was looking for, but he had no intention of revealing those secrets to anyone. Ever. It was just too dangerous, no matter what the reason.

Besides which, he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“Primary symptoms are sleeplessness, stomach pain, stomach upset, neck and back pain, heavy fatigue, difficulty concentrating, perceptual abnormalities, intermittent tremors, anxiety, and panic attacks, emotional volatility...”

She continued on, the list long and exhaustive. Harry’s face burned and he had to look away until the Healer was done speaking. When he looked back, he found she was watching him with sharp eyes.

“Healer Rottman says you feel like you ‘came back wrong’.” She paused, waited for Harry’s nod of acknowledgement. “Can you tell me what you mean by that?”

“When Voldemort cursed me, something happened. I don’t know how to put it into words but I just know. I survived that curse but it changed me. I’m not...right.”

Her face softened and Harry knew she was going to explain to him about trauma and its effects and how it was expected that he should have these sorts of difficulties given what he went through. He’d heard this before, too - many times - and it was tempting to believe it. He’d much rather simply be suffering a case of post-traumatic stress than what he suspected was the true problem.

Merriweather stayed for five days. She found nothing but assured Harry she would keep looking.

“We’ll find the answers, young man,” she said at her last visit. “Have no fear.”

But he did have fear, and Merriweather’s assurances did nothing to calm it.

***

The night Merriweather left, Harry dreamt he was back at King’s Cross Station.

_Harry sits in an old, wrought-iron chair, looking out over the empty tracks. Dumbledore sits beside him, eyes twinkling._

_“Hello, Harry. We meet here again.”_

_Harry wonders if Dumbledore is laughing at him and thinks how he never really knew the man at all._

_“Why are we here?” he asks._

_“My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say,_ your _party.”_

_Harry doesn’t respond to this. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to talk to Dumbledore, but the Headmaster is looking at him expectantly, a smile playing on his lips._

_Before either of them says anything, though, Harry hears a small mewing sound, and turns. The flayed child is still there, under the bench._

_“What is that?” he asks_

_“Something that is beyond either of our help,” says Dumbledore._

_But this time Harry doesn't listen. This time he goes over to the bench, crouches down, and reaches out to the wet, whimpering thing hidden there. It hisses when Harry touches it, but allows itself to be retrieved, to be cradled in Harry’s arms, though it remains curled in on itself like a foetus. It cries, a terrible bleating sound._

_“Shhh. Hush. Everything is going to be okay,” Harry whispers._

_The child’s head snaps up at the sound of Harry’s voice but it’s not a child’s face Harry sees. It's a monster with red slitted eyes and sharp, cruel teeth. It rears up, opens its mouth opens wide, and bites Harry’s cheek, its teeth tearing through Harry’s flesh. Harry drops the creature in shock, and clamps a hand to his face. There is a warm wetness against his hand; blood is spilling down his wrist. He turns towards Dumbledore for help but Dumbledore just sits there, looking calmly at Harry, eyes still twinkling._

_Harry conjures a mirror, inspects the wound. The flesh of his cheek hangs in strips and when Harry touches it, it seems to lift away. He can’t resist the urge to pull it and his skin peels back, separates from the bone beneath and tears away. He keeps pulling, peeling the flesh from his cheeks, his chin, his forehead until there is nothing but a gleaming skull staring back at him in the mirror. He recoils in horror, a scream racing up his throat. But when he opens his mouth, it is a snake that comes out, fat and black and hissing._

***

Harry was lying in bed, drifting somewhere between sleep and waking, when he heard voices coming from the hall, low and formal sounding. He heard the door open and turned to see Kingsley standing there, his expression grim.

Harry bolted to sitting, heart hammering against his ribcage, breath caught and burning in his throat. “What’s happened?”

Kingsley shook his head, his hands coming up in a gesture of placation. “Nothing like what you’re thinking. I’m sorry to have alarmed you, Harry.”

Harry sagged in relief. He took a shaky breath and then another. His body didn’t seem to want to calm down. He could feel the adrenalin coursing through him, pushing him to action. He rode it out, willing himself to relax, to look normal in front of Kingsley. Kingsley waited, his gaze watchful and too knowing for Harry’s comfort. Harry looked away. He wished Kingsley would leave.

“Something has happened,” Kinglsey said. “I need to ask a favour of you. There is someone currently in the care of the Ministry who needs to receive expert medical attention in a highly secure setting. Given the state of things right now, we don’t have the time or resources to develop a separate area to house him. This is one of the few spaces where we know this man can get the care he needs and be kept safe.”

Harry nodded. “It’s fine, Kingsley.” 

Although it wasn’t, not really. What Harry wanted more than anything was to be alone. He didn’t want anyone in the room with him. Not Kingsley, not the Weasleys, not the Healers, not the hospital staff. He wanted to be alone, completely alone, until he knew it was safe. He couldn’t very well explain himself to Kingsley, though, and he wasn’t about to throw a strop about having to share his room. So he nodded again and hoped that, whoever his new roommate was, it wasn’t someone chatty.

“The patient is Draco Malfoy,” Kingsley said.

Harry gaze snapped back to Kingsley.

“He was attacked recently,” Kingsley continued. “We don’t have a lot to go on, but it seems likely it was a Death Eater attack. At this point, we’re surmising the attack was in response to the information coming out of the trials about the help he and his mother provided you, though there might have been another motivation altogether. We don’t really know. His condition is critical and given the current situation, we feel that he would not be safe in the main ward, and that it wouldn’t be in the best interests of the other patients for him to be there. Many of them were injured during the war. Some might not recover. It would be best if he could be kept separate. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but we don’t have many options.”

Kingsley kept talking. Harry caught phrases like “guarantee your safety” and “no threat” but he wasn’t really listening. He wasn’t concerned about his own safety. He knew Malfoy now, had seen him stripped bare. He knew Malfoy wouldn’t hurt him. He was less sure that Malfoy wouldn’t _see_ him, though, see the truth about what kept him there, hidden away in his private, secure room. And that did concern him. That terrified him.

***

Malfoy arrived only hours after Kingsley left. Harry was on edge waiting for him, breath shallow, muscles tense. He tried to tell himself that he had nothing to worry about. It was just Malfoy. Harry tried not to think about the fact that Malfoy had lived with Voldemort, had spent months watching him, learning him, if only to try to stay alive. Malfoy would probably recognise Voldemort better than almost anyone left alive...

But Harry needn’t have worried. Malfoy arrived asleep, sedated probably, or perhaps unconscious. He was levitated in by two mediwizards and lowered carefully to the bed. They tucked him into the crisp, scratchy hospital sheets, cast a few spells, and turned to go. One of them shot Harry a rueful smile on the way out, presumably in acknowledgment of the strangeness of the situation – the Boy Who Lived rooming with a Death Eater – but Harry ignored him, his eyes on Malfoy. The room was large enough that Harry needed to actually cross it to get a good look, but even from his bed, he could see how pale Malfoy was, and how thin. 

Malfoy lay perfectly still on the bed, so still that Harry wondered if he was under some kind of paralysing spell. Harry had seen those before, back when he was still staying on the main ward. It seemed to be a sort of variation of the Body Bind Curse. It kept the patient’s body still but allowed them to move their eyes and facial muscles, and they were able to speak. He supposed it was better than a full Body Bind, but Harry still found it frankly horrifying. Seeing Malfoy like that now, unnaturally still, was more than a bit unsettling; he looked like a statue or the stone carving on top of a sarcophagus. 

Until he started screaming.

Malfoy’s eyes snapped open, wide and rolling until only the whites showed, and a jagged wail came from his wide-stretched mouth. Harry froze for one second of stunned confusion and then flew from his bed. He ran across the room, nearly crashing into Auror Mills, who had burst through the door, wand drawn.

“What’s going on in here?” Mills demanded. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Harry said, his voice strong, even though panic was clawing its way up his throat. “It’s Malfoy. We need a Healer in here!”

He’d no sooner said the words than a team of green-robed witches and wizards came streaming into the room. Harry found himself buffeted back as they surrounded Malfoy. Malfoy was still making that terrible noise, like an animal caught in a trap.

One of the Healers started swearing and another started incanting, and suddenly everything went quiet. The silence came so abruptly that for a moment it seemed to ring as loudly as Malfoy’s screams had seconds before. Whether Malfoy has been sedated or merely silenced, Harry didn’t know, but the loss of his voice felt ominous.

“Thank you,” someone said in exasperated tones.

Then the Healers began talking again, their voices so low that Harry couldn’t hear what they were saying. They were crowded around Malfoy’s bed, blocking Harry’s view, but every now and then Harry caught a glimpse of what was happening. Mostly, he saw blood. A lot of blood. 

Harry wasn’t sure how long they worked, but it seemed like a long time. His body remained on high alert the whole time. He sat in the chair beside his own bed, fingers twitching against the armrests. He wanted to shove his way to the front of the group, to demand answers, but he knew he had no grounds. Malfoy was a patient, after all, like any other, and had a right to what little privacy the circumstances afforded him. So Harry just waited, watching, his heart racing for reasons he didn’t fully understand.

Eventually, the Healers started to leave the room, drifting away one by one, their lime green robes splattered with blood. As the group thinned, Harry was able to catch snippets of conversation.

“We’ll just have to see how that holds.”

“It’s a nasty piece of cursework.”

“Apparently, the mother’s got a specialist coming in from Spain.”

“I’ll be glad of the help. Frankly, I’m running out of ideas.”

They filtered out of the room until the only person left was a middle-aged mediwitch with a harried manner. Her robe was also stained with blood, dark, wet splotches that looked almost purple. She fussed around for a bit, Vanishing wads of blood-soaked bandages, casting cleaning and sterilising spells. Then she spelled a fresh set of robes on Malfoy and turned to go. She caught sight of Harry sitting in his chair and looked momentarily startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“Mr Potter,” she said with a nod.

Harry didn’t reply, only watched silently as she turned and went out the door. 

Once she’d gone, the pull from Malfoy was so strong it felt almost tidal. He padded across the floor on bare feet to stand at Malfoy’s bedside.

If possible, Malfoy seemed even paler than before, though given the amount of blood on the Healers’ robes, Harry supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He was surprised, though, by how gaunt Malfoy was. He had lost weight even since that day at the Manor. His cheeks were sunken, his cheekbones stark and sharp. His whole face seemed little more than angles and planes; even sleep gave it no softness. His skin was ashen, almost grey, completely colourless except for the hints of red where his lips had cracked and the dark circles under his eyes, so purple they looked like bruises. 

Despite his haggard appearance, though, the thing that struck Harry most was how young Malfoy looked. Lying there in his ill-fitting hospital robe, his hair dishevelled and in need of a cut, he looked almost like a child. 

Which, in a way, he was. Malfoy was little more than a child, barely eighteen. Both of them were. It was a strange thought; Harry felt far too old to be little more than a year into adulthood. But then, he’d never really had a childhood. He went from being an unwanted burden to a soldier, with only a few months of childhood in between. A few shining months in his first year at Hogwarts when he’d discovered friendship and magic and wonder but hadn’t yet faced Voldemort. Hadn’t yet begun the fight that would take so many of the people he loved away from him. Hadn’t yet had the moment of accepting his own death.

Hadn’t yet known what had lived inside him for all those years...

Harry heard the rattling of the windows in the panes, saw the flicker of the light by Malfoy’s bed, and only then noticed his hands had clenched into fists. His face felt hot, and his skin felt too tight. His throat was tight, too, strained from the unconscious effort of keeping his anger in. Now that he was focused on it, though, he felt it churning through him, stirring up every sad, ugly, and furious thought he was always trying so bloody hard not to think, until they were all he could think of, until his head was filled with screaming and blood and death.

Malfoy whimpered, a small sound. Frightened. Helpless. 

Harry snapped back to the present. Right. He had to get a grip. He took a slow, deep breath, and then another. He counted backwards from five hundred by sevens, a trick Hermione had taught him back in fourth year when he’d been panicking about the Triwizard Tournament. Eventually, he felt the anger drain from him. His breathing slowed. His throat relaxed and he swallowed a few times, trying to soften it further. The windows settled into silence. The lights stilled. 

Though both Harry and the room had calmed, Malfoy continued to make soft, distressed sounds, clearly agitated despite the stillness of his body. Harry shuddered. He hated the Body Bind Curse. That feeling of being trapped, completely powerless...

Even with the memory in his head of Malfoy’s foot descending towards his face, Harry couldn’t help reaching out to him. He took Malfoy’s stiff hand in his own, brushed his thumb across Malfoy’s palm. At his touch, Malfoy’s whimpers ceased. Even as Harry watched, something seemed to quiet in Malfoy, and he relaxed back into sleep. Harry kept hold of Malfoy’s hand, amazed at the change. He didn’t know what exactly had happened to Malfoy, but it had obviously been horrible. If Harry holding his hand brought him some comfort, then that’s what he would do. He knew what it was to be on the edge of death, alone and afraid. He wouldn’t wish that on Malfoy, no matter what he’d done in the past.

Harry looked down at Malfoy’s hand in his own, his rough calloused fingers cradling Malfoy’s long, pale ones, and tried to remember if he’d ever held hands with another man before. He’d grabbed men’s hands, sure. He’d held on to Ron for dear life as he’d dangled out of the Ford Anglia. He’d been pulled along by Dumbledore more times than he could count. And Sirius had clasped his hand many times. He’d even held Malfoy’s hand in his before, back in the Room of Requirement as he’d hauled him onto his broom. But none of those were really hand-holding. Those were just hands joining to serve a purpose, to complete a task. This was different. This was holding hands for no reason other than comfort. Simply. Quietly. 

In some ways, it wasn’t that different from holding a girl’s hand. Malfoy’s skin was warm and every bit as soft as Ginny’s or Cho’s or Hermione’s. In other ways, though, it was completely different. Malfoy’s palm was big and broad. His fingers were bony with knobbly knuckles and short, blunt fingernails. He had the same calluses Harry had, earned through years of Quidditch, of wrestling with the broom and hard flying. Despite his current state of relaxation, Harry could feel the strength in Malfoy’s hand, could easily imagine the iron of his grip. And of course, it was completely different because it wasn’t Ginny or Cho or Hermione. Or Ron or Dumbledore or Sirius. It was Malfoy.

It was Malfoy’s hand, pale and so white that the blue of his veins was easily visible, a fine mesh of lines at his wrist that spread up into his palm and along his fingers. There was something vulnerable about his veins, something human and fragile about the way they were so close to the surface, so susceptible to harm. But there was strength there, too, lifeblood that kept flowing despite all he had endured. An image of Malfoy, seen through Voldemort’s eyes, pale-faced and afraid, floated through Harry’s mind. He shut it down, instead focusing on Malfoy’s hand in his and the delicate branching veins. 

Almost unconsciously, Harry traced their path with his fingertips, brushing along Malfoy’s wrist, over his palm, along each knuckle, up to his fingertips, and then sweeping back down again. He let his fingers trail across the bones of Malfoy’s wrist, prominent and sharp, and across the bare skin of his arm, stopping just before he reached the black tail of the Dark Mark.

Harry had seen it before, of course, much more than he’d ever wanted to. But he’d never seen it up close like this, with time to look his fill and no one to watch him do so, no one to speculate about his motivations or his sanity. 

He studied the brand on Malfoy’s flesh. It was a simple enough thing, a rough black picture of a skull and snake, but something about it seemed uneasy. Harry had seen tattoos many times, both Muggle and magical. He knew how they looked, like they were a part of the person’s skin, their colour the only difference. The Dark Mark didn’t look like that. It looked foreign, alien somehow, as if it hadn’t just been branded into Malfoy’s flesh but had actually burnt out a piece of Malfoy and inserted itself. As if Malfoy had a piece of someone else embedded in his skin. Which was probably the truth, Harry supposed.

Harry’s fingers trembled against Malfoy’s skin. What would it feel like? Would it feel like Malfoy’s skin, soft and smooth and warm, or would it feel like something else, something cold and hard and unnatural? He knew he shouldn’t touch it. If Malfoy was awake, he’d be furious. He’d probably be furious that Harry was holding his hand, even, but this, this was inexcusable, a gross invasion and Harry knew it. But his fingers seemed to be moving of their own accord, drifting closer to that blackened patch of skin. Harry watched, completely mesmerised, as his fingertips skittered forward to the snake’s tail and traced its sinewy body up to the yawning mouth of the skull. 

A thrill shot through Harry as he followed the shape of the Mark with his fingers, and felt something leap inside him. His heart thudded in his chest and heat pooled low in his belly, insistent and unmistakeable.

Harry snatched his hand away, sickened. What was wrong with him?

He stumbled away from Malfoy and back to his own bed. He climbed beneath the covers and turned on the wireless. With shaking hands, he fiddled with the reception until he found a Quidditch match. The sound was scratchy and faded in and out but Harry was glad for the poor reception because it meant he had to focus, had to concentrate to follow what was being said. Which in turn meant that he couldn’t think about Malfoy and his Mark and what it was inside him that responded to it like that.

***

Over the next two days, the scene repeated itself three times – Malfoy suddenly screaming, Healers running into the room with their wands out. Harry still had no idea what was wrong with Malfoy, but the Healers’ blood-splattered robes and grim faces suggested it wasn’t good. Each time, after everyone had left and the room was silent again, Harry would climb out from beneath his blankets, sit in the chair next to Malfoy’s bed, and hold his hand. He didn’t touch Malfoy’s Dark Mark again.

The specialist from Spain arrived the third day, an entourage of Healers and mediwitches and wizards following in his wake. Harry watched openly as they all bustled into the room and crowded around Malfoy’s bed. As always, Harry could barely see anything for all the bodies, but as one of the mediwizard spelled away Malfoy’s hospital robes, Harry caught sight of the thick white bandages that encased Malfoy’s torso and the strange blue shimmer that hovered around them.

“Would you like me to remove the stasis spell, Healer Alvarez?” 

That was Healer Johnson, one of the team that responded to Malfoy’s screams. 

“Not yet,” the specialist replied, his accent adding a pleasant musicality to his words. “I’d like to complete an initial examination first.”

There were rustling sounds and the onlookers jostled about to create more room around Malfoy’s bed. Harry saw long pieces of blood-stained bandages being thrown into a nearby bowl and then Vanished by one of the attending mediwitches. Once all the bandages were removed, the crowd shifted about again, everyone jockeying for a view. Harry caught glimpses here and there – a gash of torn red flesh, a patch of skin so pale it looked almost grey. He felt bile rise at the back of his throat, and he swallowed convulsively.

Despite the rapt attention of the audience, very little was happening that Harry could see. It seemed to drag on and on. In fact, Harry was on the verge of drowsing off when Healer Alvarez spoke.

“That is all for today. Thank you, everyone, for your hard work.”

There was a murmur of replies and then team started to drift toward the door, Healer Alvarez in the lead, Healer Johnson beside him. One mediwizard remained behind to tidy up. He spelled a new hospital robe onto Malfoy, Vanished the last of the bandages and cotton, and checked on Malfoy’s vital signs. Once finished, he turned to go but Harry caught his eye.

“Did they fix him?” Harry asked.

“Things are still in the preliminary stages.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

The mediwizard didn’t say anything; he just gave Harry a small, sad smile and left.

***

Two weeks later, however, Harry got his answer.

He was sitting in bed, a Quidditch magazine open on his lap, but he wasn’t reading it. He hadn’t been reading it for over an hour. He’d simply been staring at the wall, trying very hard not to think about Malfoy’s Dark Mark, trying to ignore the urge to go over to his bed and look at it. Touch it. He was still so fully absorbed in not thinking about that urge and what it might mean that when the door to the room pushed open, he actually gave a shout of surprise. The two mediwitches who had entered started and looked at him. Harry recognised one of them, Victoria, and she smiled at him. The other was new to him. She offered a tight, somewhat grim smile, and then continued to Malfoy’s bedside.

The two mediwitches seemed to be setting up for some sort of procedure, assembling supplies and undressing Malfoy. It was the first time Harry had been able to actually see Malfoy clearly, rather than only catching glimpses through the crowds of bodies. The skin of Malfoy’s body was even paler than his face, unnaturally so, and he looked very thin. Most of his torso was wrapped in thick bandages, but where it wasn’t, Harry could easily see the outline of his bones under the stretched taut skin. The mediwitches began removing the bandages, working slowly and carefully. As they peeled away each layer, Harry saw Malfoy’s ashen skin begin to take on a yellow tone, then a bright, angry red. Then he saw something that he was sure wasn’t skin at all, something bluish purple and wet and bloody and he had to look away, had to squeeze his eyes tight shut against the image, but still it persisted, painted itself against the backs of his eyelids and refused to budge. For the first time since he’d arrived at St Mungo’s, Harry seriously contemplated leaving his room.

Before he could decide, though, a group of people came striding through the door. Harry recognised Healers Alvarez and Johnson but he’d never seen the people who accompanied them. Three wizards and one witch, all in dark blue robes. They settled in place around Malfoy’s bed, blocking him from view completely. For once, Harry didn’t mind.

“Draco Malfoy, age eighteen.” Healer Alvarez spoke quietly but clearly, and his voice reached Harry easily. “He’s been here at St Mungo’s for approximately three weeks, after being attacked in his home while sleeping. He was immobilised and then hit with a complex series of curses and administered a poison. The curses are a series of time-sequenced Entrail-Expelling Curses, as well as a set of Obfuscating and Protective spells that have made them difficult and dangerous to remove. The poison inhibits healing and the regrowth of flesh, making it impossible for us to heal him properly after each expulsion. The poison seems to be designed to be long-acting; our Potions expert tells us it may be as long as four months before it completely clears Mr Malfoy’s system. As far as we can tell, the point was to inflict Mr Malfoy with a drawn-out and extremely painful death. We’ve been containing each attack and holding his organs in place with a series of stasis spells. Our job today is to remove the curses and the spells that support them.”

Entrail Expelling Curses. The image of that bluish purple something flashed again before Harry’s eyes, and on the heels of it, another image, another time Malfoy had been cursed in anger, his abdomen slashed open, his life seeping away. Harry clenched his fists, fingernails digging into his palms until the memory went away.

“Is everyone clear on what his job is?” Healer Alvarez asked. There were murmurs of assent and nodding heads. “Then let’s begin.”

The Curse Breakers worked for hours. Harry had no idea what they were actually doing, but it seemed like they were successful – when they finished, they had tired smiles on their faces and Healer Alvarez shook each of their hands before they left. He stayed and examined Malfoy a few minutes more, but then he left, too. 

Once he’d gone, Harry crossed to Malfoy’s bed. Malfoy looked the same as before, wan and ill. Harry watched him for a long time, but he didn’t wake and eventually Harry drifted back to his own bed.

Though Harry waited anxiously, impatience and dread warring within him, Malfoy didn’t wake up that afternoon. He didn’t wake up that evening while Harry watched carefully from his own side of the room, and he didn’t wake up that night when Harry sat in the chair beside Malfoy’s bed and held his hand. He didn’t wake up the next day or the next day or the day after that. He stayed still, unmoving, the rise and fall of his chest the only sign he was still alive, until Harry began to think that maybe there had just been too much damage done. Maybe Malfoy was never going to wake up.

Which, of course, was precisely when he did wake up, grey eyes fluttering open.

Malfoy’s gaze was dull, muddled, his eyes still half-lidded as he slowly took in his surroundings. His gaze moved across the stark ceiling, the institutional windows, the bland walls, before finding Harry. Seeing him, Malfoy paused. He blinked slowly and then again, and Harry could almost see him straining to focus. Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a dry, rasping wheeze. 

Harry jumped off his bed at the sound, ran over to Malfoy. “God, Malfoy. Hold on, I’ll get a Healer.”

He turned to call for a mediwizard when Malfoy made another sound, small but urgent. Harry looked back to see Malfoy’s eyes were wide and panicked. His mouth worked, trying to make words, but he produced only more distressed sounds. 

Without thinking, Harry took his hand. Putting on what he hoped was a calm expression, he met Malfoy’s frightened gaze. “You’re okay. I promise you’re okay. You’re in St Mungo’s. You were badly hurt, but you’re going to be fine.”

“Ca-” Malfoy gasped, then he coughed and drew in a ragged breath. “Can’t...move...” His eyes seemed to beg Harry for help.

“You’re under some kind of Body Bind spell. The Healers did it to help you recover. It’s only a spell. I’m sure they’ll remove it once they know you’re awake. I’m just going over to my bed. I have a charm to call them. I’ll be right back.”

“Pot’r...”

“I’ll be right back.”

He squeezed Malfoy’s hand and then crossed the room to search for the call charm, a small bell they’d given to him when he first arrived. He’d never used it during his stay, and it took him some time to locate it. Malfoy watched him the whole time, his mute distress increasing Harry’s anxiety. He tore through his belongings, tossing things aside frenetically. When at last he found the bell, his heart was pounding as though he’d just run a mile. 

He rang it immediately. It was very quiet, little more than a tinkling chime in the still of the room. It seemed to work, though; a minute later, Gil stuck his head through the door.

“Did you need something, Mr Potter?” he asked.

“It’s Malfoy. He’s awake. Could you tell Healer Johnson?”

Gil’s gazed flicked over to where Malfoy lay, and he frowned. “Of course. Though Healer Johnson likely already knows. Mr Malfoy would have a monitoring charm on him. The Healers are probably on their way now.”

“Could you make sure?”

“Of course,” Gil repeated and disappeared back through the door.

No more than a minute later, Healers Johnson and Alvarez hustled into the room. Harry started to back away as they approached Malfoy’s bed, trying to give them some space, but a sound from Malfoy stopped him.

“Pot’r...” Malfoy’s eyes locked on his, the terror plain. 

Harry stepped back in close to Malfoy’s bed. The Healers gave him a cursory glance before turning their full attention back to Malfoy.

“Mr Malfoy, I’m Healer Johnson. This is Healer Alvarez.”

Harry listened with half an ear as they explained the situation to Malfoy, how he’d come to be at St Mungo’s, the work they’d done. They explained the Body Bind Curse – or, Medical Immobilisation Spell, as they referred to it – and told Malfoy they’d remove it as soon as they’d had a chance to examine him. Mostly, Harry watched Malfoy. As the Healers spoke, Malfoy seemed to get paler and paler and his eyes grew wider and wilder, his gaze darting from Johnson to Alvarez to Harry. By the time the Healers had finished examining him, Malfoy’s anxiety had reached the point that they gave him a sedative. 

Once he was asleep, Harry had no real reason to stay there at his bedside, but he didn’t leave. He stood beside Malfoy while the Healers finished up and he remained there after they left. He sat in the chair beside Malfoy’s bed, watching him sleep, and eventually fell asleep himself, Malfoy’s hand gently clasped in his.

***


	2. Chapter 2

The next afternoon, when Malfoy woke up for the second time, things went a little differently. Harry was half-dozing in his bed, listening to the wireless, when he heard a weak cough, little more than a huff of breath, from the other side of the room. He turned to see Malfoy looking at him. The fuzziness had left Malfoy’s gaze, and clear grey eyes were focused on Harry. Really focused. In fact, Harry felt almost pinned by them, and he had to fight the urge to squirm.

"So, it is you,” Malfoy said, his voice a scraped whisper. Harry supposed that days of screaming would do that. “I'd been half-hoping it had all been some sort of pain-induced hallucination."

It was like a slap in the face, and for a minute Harry just gaped, too shocked to respond. After last night, he’d expected... well, he wasn’t sure what, but not an attack. Harry’s hands balled into fists, the fabric of his sheets clenched in his fingers, and he felt the same flash point anger he’d had that last day at the Burrow. It burned through him, red hot. He opened his mouth to toss back a rude retort –

And saw Malfoy’s mouth tremble. 

Malfoy’s lips twisted into a smirk, trying to cover it, but it was too late. Harry had seen that small tremor and he found his anger draining away as swiftly as it had arrived, his biting words dying in his throat. Malfoy was still vulnerable, no matter how desperately he tried to hide it.

Harry uncurled his fists. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, and he shot Malfoy a wry grin.

Malfoy’s smirk slipped for a second, his surprise showing through, but then he pulled it back in place. "Don't worry, I'm used to you being a disappointment."

"Funny."

"I like to think so." 

"I'm sure you do."

They lapsed into silence. Harry watched as Malfoy took in his surroundings. Though the Healers had removed the immobilisation spell, Malfoy held his body as motionless as possible; unsurprising, given the state of his abdomen. Still, it was disconcerting to watch as Malfoy's eyes darted around while his body remained unmoving as stone. Harry hadn't realised it until that moment, but he always associated Malfoy with movement. Whether streaking across the Quidditch pitch, talking animatedly to his fellow Slytherins, or just fiddling with his wand, Malfoy was always in motion. Seeing Malfoy now, Harry was reminded of the taxidermied animals he'd seen in Natural History Museum, the way their lifelike poses and sparkling plastic eyes only served to draw attention to the inherent wrongness of them.

He was dragged away from his morbid thoughts when Malfoy started speaking again.

"So. You and me. Roommates, huh?"

Harry nodded. "Yep."

"In a private room?" 

"That's about the size of it."

Malfoy's head turned slowly, carefully, to face Harry again. "And do you have any idea how this situation happened to come about?"

Harry sighed. He’d been hoping to avoid this question a little longer. "Security problems.”

“There were security problems that were _solved_ but putting us alone in a room together.” 

“It didn’t start out that way. At first, it was just me here.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Of course. Harry Potter would need a private, Auror-guarded room.”

Defensiveness flared almost instantly. “I didn’t ask for this, Malfoy. I started out on the main ward like everybody else. But there were...issues, and I had to be moved.”

“I’m sure.”

“I was..." Harry hesitated, then started over. "One of the..." He trailed off again, trying to think of a way to put it that wouldn't lead to Malfoy mocking him mercilessly, but really, there was no way around it. Vulnerable or no, Malfoy was going to have a field day with it. "I was being harassed by one of the other patients. It sort of... escalated."

Malfoy quirked a brow. "To requiring your own guarded room?"

"Something like that."

"Escalated, indeed." Amusement glinted in Malfoy’s eyes, but to his credit and Harry’s surprise, he didn’t take the easy shot. "And me?"

"They put you in here because they were concerned about your safety on the main ward."

Malfoy’s nose crinkled, apparently his way of showing impatience – or maybe annoyance – given the limited gestures at his disposal. "I know that. I remember what the Healers said. I meant, what am I doing in here with you? You know, me being a dangerous Death Eater and all."

Harry shrugged. "Things are kind of chaotic right now with the Ministry." Malfoy snorted, presumably at the understatement. "The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is a mess. St Mungo's is still overwhelmed from... everything. Between the two, they weren't able to secure another space in the hospital, so..."

"So you volunteered yours?" Malfoy asked, his tone suggesting he found the scenario highly unlikely.

"Kingsley asked. I said yes."

"What would have happened to me if you'd said no?"

Harry shrugged again. Truthfully, he had no idea what Kingsley would have said. Probably just gone ahead with it anyway.

Some of the amusement left Malfoy’s face – apparently, he was considering darker possibilities – and he nodded, his hair falling forward to obscure his eyes. "How fortunate for me, then.”

Malfoy raised a hand, presumably to brush at the hair that had fallen into his face when he’d nodded. He got his hand as far as shoulder height and then froze, a grimace of pain twisting his features.

Without thinking, Harry jumped up and crossed the room. "What is it? Are you all right?"

Malfoy glared at him from behind blond fringe and Harry felt heat rise in his cheeks, but then his own annoyance pushed through the embarrassment. Maybe it had been a stupid impulse but he was only trying to help. 

Slowly, so slowly it was like he was moving through water, Malfoy lowered his arm back down to the bed. He panted, his face pale, his hair still hanging in his eyes. "Moving...hurts..."

Harry nodded, not sure what to say.

Once his arm again rested on the mattress, Malfoy took in a shuddering breath. "Merlin, I hate this."

Harry took a slow breath of his own, trying to let go of his irritation. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Potter, I have a gash the size of a small country across my stomach that won't close,” Malfoy said with a sneer. “The only things keeping my intestines from spilling all over the bed are a Sticking Charm and a few bandages. What exactly do you think you can do to help?"

Harry blinked. Back to attacking when vulnerable, then. "Right,” he said stiffly. “How stupid of me.”

And really, it had been stupid of him. Vulnerable or not, and regardless of the events of the last few years, Malfoy was still Malfoy and Harry wasn’t sure why he thought that might have changed. He started back towards his own bed.

"Wait,” Malfoy called.

Harry turned around. Malfoy wasn’t looking at him, his eyes fixed on some random point off to Harry’s left. Harry waited, but Malfoy didn’t say anything further. He just looked off into the distance, silent and tense. After a minute of this, his mouth curved into a frown.

“I'm..." Malfoy trailed off, then took another ragged breath. "The pain, it just makes me... I didn't mean to..."

Harry continued to stare, confused for a moment before he realised Malfoy was apologising. Sort of. In his own very Malfoyish way. 

Harry nodded, unsure what to do with that.

Malfoy’s eyes darted away and then flicked back towards Harry, his cheeks tinted pink. Harry kept looking at him, standing at the halfway point between their two beds, awkward, unsure whether to move towards Malfoy or back towards his own bed. The moment stretched between them until Harry felt ridiculous.

Fortunately, they were saved from themselves by the arrival of Gil. He swung through the door and then paused, clearly surprised as he took in the scene. Then he smiled.

“Morning, Harry!” Gil said, flashing his grin in Harry’s direction. Harry managed a feeble smile in return. 

Gil turned his grin on Malfoy. “Good morning, Mr Malfoy. Good to see you’re awake. My name is Gil Wright. I’m one of the mediwizards that will be working with you. I’ve just come to give you quick check and see how you are.”

Harry retreated to his own bed while Gil examined Malfoy. When Gil left, they didn’t resume their conversation. Malfoy spent the rest of the day sleeping, or pretending to. Harry had no doubt Malfoy was tired but after sharing a room with him for three weeks, he knew Malfoy’s sleeping sounds and there were many hours where they were starkly absent, despite Malfoy’s closed eyes. For his part, Harry stuck his nose in a book and only came out for meals. He determinedly read until the stars were shining outside the window and his eyes felt gritty with fatigue. He fell asleep with the book open on his chest and no idea of what it was even about.

***

The days that followed saw little improvement. Whatever tentative bond Harry and Malfoy had formed during Malfoy’s moments of vulnerability that first night seemed to have disappeared now that he was stable and lucid. Or maybe it was more that, without the immediacy of urgent need, the weight of the past just bore down on them too strongly. There was so much between them waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be spoken about, to be worked through, resolved, and moved past. The very idea of talking about those things – Dumbledore, Snape, what had happened in the girls’ loo, in the Room of Requirement, on the Hogwarts Express, in Malfoy Manor – was out of the question. Harry couldn’t even think about those things without getting a headache, throbbing and insistent behind his right eye. He doubted Malfoy was any more eager to discuss their shared history. But its presence was impossible to ignore, and it seemed to take up all the space in the room, so that even in his own bed Harry felt stifled and trapped.

With Malfoy awake and their room full of tension and unspoken words, Harry found it hard to believe that he’d ever sat at Malfoy’s bedside, holding his hand, helping him through whatever dark places his dreams were taking him. He hadn’t realised then how much comfort he had taken from providing comfort to Malfoy. Now that it was so far away from him, though, he missed it. He craved the physical contact, the safe, unchallenging giving and sharing of touch, the way it had calmed something within him. Without it, the anger and anxiety took hold too quickly, coiled up tight within him, ready to burst out at the first hint of provocation. He felt as though he balanced on a knife’s edge. He found his hands balled into fists for no reason, his teeth grinding until his jaw ached. 

The nights were even worse than the days, the nightmares returning stronger than ever. His nights without Dreamless Sleep were restless, haunted. Gruesome images – bloody and horrible – seemed to always be right at the surface of his mind, just waiting for Harry to close his eyes. Twice he’d woken to find his face wet with tears. Another night, he’d clawed long scratches into his neck and face while he’d slept. When he had discovered them in the morning, he’d spelled them away before anyone saw them. He found himself staying up later and later, afraid to sleep, afraid of what he might dream, and even more afraid of what those dreams might mean.

***

_He is in the Room of Requirement, up on his broom, Fiendfyre screaming around him, and he’s hot, so hot he thinks he can actually smell his own flesh starting to cook. Below him, Malfoy stands on a rickety tower of debris, shrieking, eyes wide with fear. Harry dives down towards him, arm extended, but Malfoy doesn’t offer his hand in return. He has his arms clamped around his middle. Harry grasps Malfoy’s elbow, tries to get him to let go of his waist and grab onto Harry but Malfoy resists, tightens his hold. Frustrated, Harry pulls harder and harder and finally goes for his wand._

_The spell that he shouts into the roar of the fire is not the one he meant to say. “Sectumsempra!”_

_The arms clamped around Malfoy’s middle fall away, sliced clean off at the forearms, and Malfoy’s stomach bursts open. Blood splatters Harry, sprays across his face, gets into his mouth. He sees something fall from the gaping wound in Malfoy’s stomach, sees it unravel and stretch down, down, down, purple and wet and bloody. Harry reaches for it, pulls up the fall of Malfoy’s intestines, tries to push them back into the dark, seeping hole that used to be Malfoy’s abdomen, but they are too slippery and he can’t hold on to them. The fire is getting closer, and the tower shifts beneath them. Malfoy pitches forward, unable to stop himself with the bloody stumps of his arms. He falls onto Harry and the movement pushes Harry’s hands right_ into _that hole, his hands are_ inside _Malfoy, and Malfoy screams and screams and Harry screams too –_

Harry jolted awake, the screams loud in his ears, confusingly loud, until he realised that he really was screaming and so was Malfoy. 

Malfoy was screaming.

Harry was across the room in a second. Malfoy was sitting up in his bed, his arms clamped around his middle just as they had been in Harry’s dream. Malfoy’s screams stopped, cutting off abruptly, and he started panting, his face deathly pale in the wan moonlight coming through the window.

“Malfoy! Malfoy, tell me what to do! Tell me what you need!”

Malfoy said nothing. He just kept panting, his eyes squeezed shut. Harry could see sweat beading his hairline.

“Hold tight, I’ll get a Healer.”

“No,” Malfoy ground out. “No...Healer...”

“But Malfoy, you’re –”

“Just...give me...a minute,” Malfoy gasped and then bit his lip. He gnawed it until it turned red, the only colour in his pale face. Eventually, his breathing slowed and he sighed, deep and ragged.

“What happened?” Harry asked.

Malfoy’s eyes snapped open and locked on Harry with a glare that was pure venom. “What happened?” he choked out. “You started screaming. Scared me nearly bloody to death. I jerked awake and almost tore myself in half.”

Harry felt the blood drain from his face. “You need a Healer.”

“No,” Malfoy said with a slight shake of his head. “They’d come if they needed to. There’s a monitoring spell on me. This is just pain. There’s nothing they can give me without using that damn immobilisation spell; they’re too worried that if I don’t feel the pain, I’ll accidentally move in ways that make things worse. And between the pain and immobilisation, I’ll take the pain.” Harry wasn’t convinced. It must have shown on his face because Malfoy added, “Trust me. It happened once before, though not this bad. It will pass. Just help me lie back down.”

With one last doubtful look, Harry shifted around so he could support Malfoy’s body. Together, they slowly lowered Malfoy to his usual semi-reclined position, propped up against a pile of pillows. 

“Ah, shit,” Malfoy said as he settled into place. Sweat dripped down his temples. “What the hell were you dreaming about, anyway?”

Harry blocked the images that tried to rush forward. “I don’t remember.”

Malfoy gave him a suspicious glance but didn’t challenge him. “Do you get a lot of nightmares?”

“They come and go.”

“Wonderful,” Malfoy said with a huff.

Harry bristled. “I take Dreamless Sleep as much as they’ll let me.”

“Great, so what am I supposed to do on the nights where they don’t let you take it?”

Harry tossed his hands up. “What do you want me to say? It’s not like I have any control over my dreams.”

Malfoy gave Harry a hard look. Harry met it evenly. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to be having nightmares. He was doing everything he could _not_ to have them. 

They stared each other down for several long seconds. Then Malfoy huffed again, and closed his eyes. Harry watched him, hackles raised, waiting for him to say something more. It was only when Malfoy started snoring that Harry realised the conversation was over.

***

In the end, it was boredom that bridged the awkwardness between them.

For Harry, being isolated in their room wasn’t so bad. He was more than happy to read his magazines and books, listen to the wireless, and spend large portions of the day sitting on his bed, staring at nothing. In fact, it was pretty much all he wanted to do. He knew it should worry him. Sometimes hours ticked by while he just sat and looked out the window, his mind empty, his thoughts shut off completely. He’d watch the clouds drifting by, or a bird on the window ledge. He’d watch rain splatter against the window. And he wouldn’t think of anything at all. He knew that by nature he was someone who liked to be active, who liked to be out there _doing_ , not just sitting and vegetating, but thinking about the ways he’d changed made him think about _why_ he’d changed, which was something he avoided thinking about at all cost. So he did his best not to let himself dwell on it. And the small distractions available to him were enough to keep him occupied.

It seemed, however, that they weren’t enough for Malfoy. Granted, it was different for Malfoy. He had to stay so still all the time. For him, flipping through a magazine was a painful, arduous process. He couldn’t move about the room, or go over to stand by the window. He didn’t even get the small daily breaks of using the bathroom or eating a meal – until his abdomen healed, everything about Malfoy’s nutrition and digestion was handled through spells and potions. Malfoy had nothing to do but lie perfectly still in his bed and listen to the wireless. Which he did quite successfully for several days. 

Eventually, however, he broke. 

They were lying in their beds, Harry flipping through a Quidditch magazine, afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, when Malfoy suddenly shouted, an inarticulate, wordless yell that echoed through the room.

Harry’s head snapped round, his heart thudding against his ribs. But Malfoy was sitting against his pillows, looking relatively normal, right down to the scowl on his face.

“Problem?” Harry ventured.

“Merlin help me, but I cannot listen to another bloody Celestina Warbeck retrospective!”

Harry’s eyebrows shot up.

“There are thousands of other artists out there,” Malfoy continued, his voice growing louder and shriller with each word. “Surely one of them deserves some attention. And can you please explain to me why the reception is so shitty in this place? I can only get three channels. Three! How is that possible? It runs on _magic_. Piece of crap.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

“If I hear _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love_ one more time, I’m going to start screaming.”

Harry snickered. After living at the Burrow all summer, he knew the feeling. 

Malfoy turned his glower on Harry. “Seriously, I’m starting to wish those curses had killed me.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, because dying from your innards exploding out of your stomach is definitely preferable to listening to Celestina Warback.”

“Hey, I’m the only one in this room who has experienced both of those things, and I’m telling you, it’s too close to call.”

Harry shook his head and went back to his magazine.

A moment later, Malfoy piped up again. “I don’t understand you.”

Harry glanced over. “Hm?”

“You don’t have to stay in here. You can leave the room, go for walks, have visitors. But you just sit in here all day. Aren’t you going insane?”

One of the conditions of Malfoy’s being granted Auror-protected treatment in the hospital was that he not have any contact with confirmed Death Eaters or known Death Eater associates – which pretty much encompassed everyone Malfoy knew – regardless of their current legal status. Even his parents weren’t allowed to visit or write to him. Malfoy had been enraged when he’d first found out, and Harry could understand his feelings. At the same time, there were a lot of people in the hospital because of the Death Eaters, some of whom were long-time supporters of St Mungo’s, others who had a fair deal of clout over at the Ministry. Harry understood that it was as much a political move as it was a safety consideration, but he still sympathised with Malfoy – aside from the occasional visit from the Aurors to tell Malfoy that they _still_ had no leads on finding whoever had attacked him, Malfoy hadn’t had a single message from the outside world since arriving.

On the other hand, Harry kind of envied him that he still cared to have contact with the outside world. 

“I’m just focused on recovering right now,” Harry said.

“Recovering. I see.” Malfoy slanted him a suspicious look. “While we’re on the subject, what are you even here for?”

“It’s sort of a long story.”

Something in Malfoy’s face shuttered at Harry’s words, and his lips pressed into a thin, grim line. “Right. I get it. You don’t have to tell me.”

Harry shook his head and shifted in his bed to face Malfoy properly. "It’s not that. It's just sort of hard to explain."

Malfoy sniffed, unmollified.

Harry cast about for a way to start. "Just, that last day, at Hogwarts..." He trailed off, unable to find the words.

"I thought you were all right,” Malfoy said. “The papers all said you hadn't been hurt and at the trials you..." Then it was Malfoy’s turn to trail off, his voice fading as he backed off of talking about things they had yet to acknowledge between them.

Harry spoke quickly, eager to move away from all talk of the trials. "It seems to be something that developed after that. I didn’t have any symptoms at first, but then I did and they started getting worse, so I came here."

"And?" Malfoy prompted, his eyes fixed on Harry.

"And what?" Harry hedged. 

But Malfoy wasn’t giving in. "And what’s wrong with you?"

"They don't know. They've been doing a lot of tests, called in specialists, but..." He shrugged.

“So you’re just here, cut off from the outside world, wasting away from some mysterious, possibly-Dark-Lord-related illness?”

Harry snorted. “I don’t know if I’d be quite so melodramatic about it but, yes, that’s about it.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed as he gave Harry an assessing look. “You don’t seem too concerned about it.”

Harry shrugged again. He didn’t know what to say.

Malfoy’s brow furrowed, and Harry could practically hear the thoughts buzzing through his head. He decided to change the subject before Malfoy could ask any more questions that Harry really didn’t want to answer. “Listen, back to the Celestina Warbeck thing, if you’re really going mental, I’m sure we can work out something else for you to do. Maybe we can levitate a book in front of you or something, charm the pages to turn every minute or so?”

Malfoy studied him a moment longer and then relented, his brow clearing as he shook his head. “Doesn’t work. It takes too much concentration to hold the book steady enough to read.”

“Maybe you could get someone to read to you.”

Malfoy scoffed. “Yes, I’m sure the hospital volunteers will all be queuing up to spend some time with a Death Eater. Besides, you know no one is allowed in here besides staff. Even my parents aren’t allowed to visit me, never mind some keen, impressionable young thing with her eye on becoming a Healer one day.”

Harry had to admit he was probably right about that. “Well, what if I read to you?”

Malfoy gaped at him. 

“What?” Harry asked, annoyed at Malfoy’s shock.

Malfoy’s mouth snapped shut. “Nothing. I just...” He paused and cleared his throat. “I would like that, actually.” His gaze skittered away from Harry.

Harry looked at him a moment longer, wishing, not for the first time, that he could go back to the simplicity of helping Malfoy by holding his hand while he slept instead of trying to wade through the confusing mess of the current situation. Then he turned his attention to the stack of reading materials beside his bed.

“So what do you want?” he asked, leafing through the pile. “I’ve got _Quidditch Quarterly_ , _Bludgers and Brooms_ , some science fiction –”

“Some what?”

“Science fiction. Muggle stories about outer space and aliens or about the future and all the things that could go wrong, that kind of stuff.”

Malfoy seemed to mull this over, then asked, “What else?”

“A few mysteries. Some reference stuff, mostly about wizarding culture, history of magic, that kind of thing.” Those had arrived with a note from Hermione – despite still being in Australia, she’d special-ordered them from Flourish and Blotts, ever optimistic about engaging his mind. “You know, in case you’re looking to expand your knowledge.”

There were also some top shelf magazines that George had smuggled in under his robes during the first week of Harry’s stay, but Harry didn’t offer that information.

“Maybe we should just start with _Quidditch Quarterly_ for now.”

Harry nodded. “Sounds good.” 

He found the most recent issue and padded over to Malfoy’s bedside. He settled into the chair there and flipped past the first few pages. “Should I skip to the articles or do you want to hear the letters to the editor?”

“Ugh, no. Straight to the articles, definitely.”

Harry nodded and paged through to a story on the Chudley Cannons’ new Seeker. “I should warn you, I’m a bit of a Cannons fan.”

“I’ll be sure to do my best to mock them as viciously as possible then.”

“Knew I could count on you.”

“For mocking? Always.”

Harry laughed. 

“Potter?”

Harry’s eyes flicked up from the headline, _A New Hope for the Cannons?_ , to see Malfoy looking at him, an uncharacteristic uncertainty on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Harry blinked. “You’re welcome.”

His voice sounded a bit robotic to his own ears, but it seemed as though it was good enough because Malfoy’s expression shifted, relaxed, and Harry felt himself relax in response. 

“So, Wesley Weatherfell, let’s see if you really are a new hope for the Cannons or not,” he said, and began to read.

***

After that, things seemed to get a bit easier with Malfoy. They still sniped at each other. Their tempers still flared frequently. But in the in-between times, it was better.

They fell into a routine. Though Malfoy couldn’t eat or drink anything, he seemed to like company first thing in the morning, so Harry would sit by Malfoy’s bedside while he had his breakfast and read the _Prophet_ headlines to Malfoy. Somewhere around ten o’clock, a mediwizard – usually Gil – would come in to check on Malfoy and change his bandages. Harry typically took the opportunity to have a shower; he was still haunted by the glimpse of Malfoy’s intestines he’d caught before.

Afterwards, Malfoy would sleep again and Harry would listen to the wireless or read a book or just stare out the window until Malfoy woke up. Sometime after lunch, they’d scan the wireless for anything interesting. They often ended up chatting a bit at this point, though they were both careful with what they said. It was a tenuous peace between them, so they steered clear of topics like family, friends, and Hogwarts. Sometimes, if things felt too tense, Harry would read a book to Malfoy, both of them taking refuge in the safety of other people’s words. 

Malfoy would tire fairly quickly. He’d sleep again. Harry would stare at the wall again. Malfoy would usually wake when Harry’s dinner arrived. Around seven, Malfoy’s bandages would be changed again and Harry would either take a bath or another shower or just hide behind a book and try very hard to act like he couldn’t hear Malfoy’s hisses and moans of pain. Malfoy usually fell asleep shortly thereafter. Harry usually didn’t fall asleep until the small hours of the morning. 

It wasn’t comfortable, exactly, but, surprisingly, it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. 

They were about a week into this shared routine when Lisa arrived one morning to tell Harry that Healer Greenley was bringing in a new specialist to see him.

“His name is Callaghan. From Ireland. Apparently, he’s a big deal over there, very highly regarded. He specialises in protective blood magics. Healer Greenley made it sound like Callaghan was doing us a big favour by coming in to consult on your case but, frankly, I doubt there’s many who wouldn’t jump at the chance. Not every day you get to work with the bloke who saved the whole world.”

Over on his side of the room, Malfoy scoffed. “God, please stop. It's bad enough celebrity Healers are clamouring to work with him. We don’t need you fawning all over him, too.”

“Shut it, you,” Lisa said, laughter in her voice. 

Much to Harry’s chagrin, a friendship seemed to have sprung up between Malfoy and Lisa, full of teasing and good humour. Harry found it a bit bewildering to watch. He'd seen Malfoy with his friends at school, of course, but those interactions seemed to mainly consist of Malfoy bossing Crabbe and Goyle around or flirting with Pansy Parkionson. Harry had never seen him like this - friendly, open, still with a bit of a bite to him, but not the viciousness Harry knew from their Hogwarts days. In fact, seeing him like this, Malfoy seemed a lot like Harry's own friends. That combined with his own increasing comfort around Malfoy made Harry wonder if the war had changed Malfoy or if he'd always been like that and Harry had just never known. He found both possibilities saddening. As a result, Lisa's visits had started to leave him feeling out of sorts. 

“Anyway," Lisa continued. "He’s supposed to arrive this morning. He’ll be by later this afternoon to talk to you, I imagine.”

Malfoy turned his head to look at Harry, his eyes sparkling. “Oh, Potter,” he crowed. “The tables are about to turn. Now I get to see you with your bandages off. Figuratively speaking, anyway.”

Lisa pointed a finger at Malfoy in warning. “You behave yourself.”

Malfoy feigned offence. “I am always the very model of propriety and tact.”

Lisa and Malfoy laughed, but Harry couldn’t manage it, struck dumb at the thought of having Malfoy witness his interrogation by yet another Healer. He thought of all the times he'd been present for Malfoy's examinations, how he'd seen parts of Malfoy no one had ever seen, had seen his _insides_. He couldn’t really complain now that it was Malfoy's turn to see his insides. But oh god, what if he saw... Harry squeezed his eyes shut against the thought but it did nothing to slow his suddenly racing heart.

***

It took Harry all of five seconds to deduce that Callaghan was an arse.

He entered the room with a broad stride, his shoes clacking loudly against the tile floor, his eyes on a file in his hand while he gave a vague hello to the room. Clearly, he hadn’t earned his reputation based on his bedside manner.

Callaghan stood at the foot of Harry’s bed, holding Harry’s open file, a pair of spectacles perched on the end of his nose. Harry sat on his bed, barefoot and in his pyjamas. As Healer Callaghan’s gaze raked over him, Harry found himself wishing he’d thought to get dressed. Or at least put on socks.

Callaghan frowned down at the file in his hand. “So, Healer Greenley has brought me up to speed on your case. I’ve looked over the previous tests that have been done. I know that the most obvious reasons for your problems have largely been ruled out. But when I was reading your account of the events, I was struck by something. The night when You-Know-Who first rose, back when you were –” He glanced down at the chart “- fourteen. Can you describe the ritual to me in greater detail?”

They talked for almost an hour, Healer Callaghan grilling him on events that touched on the exchange of blood, and the protection that had come with his mother’s sacrifice. When they’d exhausted that line of questioning, Callaghan started in on the night of the final battle, wanting the details of Voldemort’s death and Harry’s role in it. Callaghan’s questions were blunt, bordering on invasive, and Harry found himself frequently wanting to tell him to bugger off. He didn’t though, instead clamping down on his irritation and answering as best he could while still protecting the information that needed to stay secret. But his agitation level rose with every question, aggravation and anxiety churning in his gut, making him dig his nails into his palms. By the time they got to the final confrontation at the Great Hall, Harry was clenching his jaw so tightly, he could hear his teeth grinding.

Malfoy watched the whole thing silently, his eyes as big as saucers.

Harry detailed the last duel as dispassionately as possible but he still couldn’t help seeing it all in his mind’s eye, each detail as clear as the day it had happened. By the time he finished, his mouth was dry and his eyes pricked and stung. Though he knew it was only a memory, he would have sworn he could smell the stench of death and burning, that he could hear the sound of far off screams.

Callaghan probably would have gone on all afternoon – he seemed to be formulating the next round of questions while Harry struggled with visions of his friends’ dead bodies – but Harry had reached his limit and told Callaghan so.

Reluctantly, Callaghan acquiesced. “Well, that will give me enough to start with. I’ll consult my notes and come back tomorrow. We can talk more, discuss some possibilities.”

Harry nodded; between his fatigue and his desire to tell Callaghan what he could do with his possibilities, he didn’t trust himself to speak. He felt shaky and looked down to see his hands trembling against his thighs. He took at deep breath. Maybe a shower and a bit of privacy while he tried to calm down.

He waited until Healer Callaghan had left the room before swinging out of bed and heading towards the bathroom. 

Malfoy’s voice stopped him before he even reached the door.

“You didn’t tell him everything.”

Harry’s stomach plummeted to his feet. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

“Healer Callaghan. You didn’t tell him everything. You didn’t tell him about the Elder Wand.”

Harry turned around and faced Malfoy. “No, I didn’t,” he said in a firm voice, hoping that it would end the conversation.

He should have known it wouldn’t work. It was Malfoy, after all. 

“And you didn’t tell him about whatever it was that the Dark Lord was doing to prolong his life.”

The strength left Harry’s body in a rush and he had to reach back and grasp the bathroom door handle to steady himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Potter,” Malfoy said, and now his voice held the tone that brooked no argument. “We all knew. We didn’t know _what_ he was doing, if it was a spell or a potion or what, but we all knew he was doing something that staved off death. All you had to do was look at him – he was barely even human anymore. And he was always making broad comments about his invincibility. We knew, and we knew that you were a threat to him, that you could do something that would make him vulnerable. That prophecy... We knew it was all linked; we just didn’t know how.”

Harry stared at Malfoy mutely, holding on to the door handle so hard that his fingers began to ache. 

“Why haven’t you told any of the Healers about all that?” Malfoy pressed. “Surely it’s the sort of thing they need to know to figure out what’s going on with you?”

_You should know_ , Harry thought. _You, more than anyone._

“There are some secrets that need to be kept.”

Malfoy’s eyes pinned him. “Even if it’s hurting you?” 

He met Malfoy’s gaze easily, his own certainty bleeding away some of his panic. “Even if it kills me.”

Harry escaped to the solitude of the shower before Malfoy could say anything more. He stayed a long time, letting the hot water pound against his skull, his neck and shoulders as he tried not to remember being tied to a cold gravestone, his arm cut and bleeding, Cedric’s lifeless body only feet away, Voldemort rising out of the cauldron, skeletal and more horrible than anything he could have imagined. He tried not to remember Dumbledore plummeting from the Astronomy Tower, Hermione’s screams as she was tortured, Snape lying on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, Neville’s head catching fire. He tried not to remember the shades of his parents, the flash of green rushing towards him. He tried not to remember the bodies of his friends lined up in the Great Hall. He scrubbed his arms, neck, and torso, scouring the soap-slicked skin with the rough hospital flannel until it was red and raw, the sting of it a welcome distraction.

When he finally emerged back into their room, Malfoy eyes followed him, watchful, considering. Harry ignored him, climbing into his own bed and pulling the covers high around his shoulders. He could still feel Malfoy’s eyes boring into his back, burning into him as he waited for the limited reprieve of a restless and broken sleep to come.

***

Over the following week, not only did Callaghan confirm Harry’s initial impression that he was an arse, he also failed to come up with anything helpful. He made Harry narrate the most harrowing moments of his life in exhausting detail, Malfoy openly listening in the entire time. He ran test after test after test, many of them painful, or embarrassing, or both. He pontificated at length, a sort of intellectual masturbation that Harry found infuriating, but Malfoy seemed to find amusing if his eye rolling and quiet snickers were anything to go by.

In the end, Callaghan left without doing Harry any good at all. He made a pretty speech about continuing testing back at his own hospital with his “highly specialised, cutting-edge equipment” and his “team of top-notch Healing experts,” but Harry was pretty sure that was just a cover to allow Callaghan to bow out without having to admit he’d failed utterly.

The only good thing that came out of it all was that it seemed to create an even greater sense of ease between Harry and Malfoy. Apparently, seeing underneath Harry’s bandages had put them on an equal footing. Malfoy’s defensiveness lessened, Harry hid hide behind magazines a bit less in response, and something between them seemed to open up and breathe for the first time. He found himself actually looking forward to Malfoy’s periods of wakefulness. He discovered that he preferred to listen to the wireless with Malfoy rather than alone, that he wanted to know Malfoy’s opinion on the latest scandal to rock the Quidditch world, that he wanted to hear Malfoy’s guesses about how a book would end. Harry found that not only was it comfortable to be around Malfoy, but it was often even enjoyable. And while all these new discoveries made things easier with Malfoy, they also made Harry’s life just that much more confusing.

***

Inside the cocoon of the hospital room, Harry often felt completely removed from time. He looked out the window, saw the slide of summer into autumn, saw the leaves changing, saw how it looked cold and damp. People rushed by under umbrellas, their coat collars turned up against the chill. But inside, with Malfoy, each day seemed the same as the last. They had good days, of course, when Malfoy could tolerate his pain and Harry was able to clear his head of the anxiety and anger that so often had hold of him. And they had bad days, when Malfoy couldn’t even turn his head without moaning, and Harry had panic attacks or had to shut down completely to keep himself from attacking anyone who so much as looked at him. But mostly the days were the same and Harry slid from one to the next without giving it much thought.

Some days stood out more than others, though, and Harry knew as soon as he woke that he was having one of those days. 

He woke suddenly from a nightmare in the pre-dawn hours, thrashing and gasping for air. He managed not to scream but couldn’t keep himself from tumbling out of his bed in a tangle of knotted blankets, knocking the water glass on his bedside table to the floor in the process. It shattered spectacularly. It took Harry several moments to find his wand in the dark; he cut himself at least half a dozen times on the glass shards littering the floor as he searched for it. And of course, the sound of Harry thumping onto the floor and the glass smashing woke up Malfoy, who gave Harry an earful before going back to sleep. Harry didn’t manage to fall asleep again. He lay in bed watching the sky lighten, the smears of blood on his hands drying into itchy streaks.

His morning only got worse as Greenley showed up shortly after breakfast with two student Healers in tow, and gave a bedside presentation on Harry’s “intriguing and baffling case.” The two students gawped openly at Harry, one of them seemingly unable to shift his eyes from Harry’s scar. Harry knew this was something that happened at the hospital, student Healers having the chance to learn from real patients. He’d probably been lucky that security considerations had kept it from happening before. He knew they were safe – he was quite sure Kingsley would have grilled them to the point of tears, possibly under Veritaserum, before letting them anywhere near Harry’s room. But even so, as they gawked at him like he was on display at the zoo, Harry couldn’t help feeling violated. Greenley had no right to bring them there without warning or permission. He was done being offered up for public consumption, no matter what the reason. 

As the students continued to stare and Greenley continued to talk about Harry as if he weren’t in the room, Harry felt the familiar heat building in his stomach, rushing up and spreading through him until his whole body shook. Then the windows started to shake, too, and the lights started to flicker, and Harry heard Malfoy call his name, but it sounded far away and faint. Harry didn’t respond. He pushed himself out of bed and stalked to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. Greenley seemed to take the hint – they were gone when Harry emerged five minutes later. Malfoy, of course, found the whole thing endlessly funny and laughed so hard his wound started to bleed, which made Harry feel slightly better. 

Things were just starting to settle down Gil showed up and Harry’s jaw practically hit the floor, all thoughts of broken glasses and gawking students forgotten. 

Gil wore a fitted grey jumper that looked so soft, it practically begged to be touched, and a pair of old faded jeans that hugged his arse and showed off the long, lean line of his legs. His hair was damp and it curled against the back of his neck in a way that Harry found completely riveting. He knew he was staring, knew he needed to look away, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it. He couldn’t even manage to close his mouth.

Gil took in Harry’s gobsmacked face and gave a sheepish smile. “Yeah, sorry about this. I was just about to leave for home when Johnson told me Victoria was running late.” He turned to face Malfoy, who was looking at Harry with a very peculiar expression on his face. “I wasn’t sure when she’d be in, so I thought I’d do it before I left. Hope you don’t mind my less than professional appearance – I’d already sent my robes to launder.”

Malfoy gave Gil a once over and quirked an eyebrow at him. “As long as you don’t mind getting a little blood on your jumper.”

“I can just spell it off, it will be fine," Gil said with a grin as he moved over to Malfoy’s bedside. “Okay then, let’s get your kit off.”

Malfoy had long since abandoned the standard issue hospital robes for his own clothes. Harry didn’t blame him in the least – the hospital gowns were uncomfortable and never stayed closed. The downside was that every time Malfoy had his bandages changed, he had to strip off half his clothes. He whined about it almost every time, and today was no exception – Malfoy hissed as Gil Vanished his t-shirt.

“It’s bloody cold in this room.”

Gil, used to this behaviour, cast a Warming Charm without blinking an eye, and then tugged Malfoy’s pyjama trousers down low on his hips, exposing the bottom edge of the bandages. Gil leant forward, and Harry couldn’t look away from the rounded curve of his arse. It was ridiculous how attractive the man was.

Malfoy groaned, the sound low and guttural and full of pain, snapping Harry out of his daze.

“Sorry, Draco,” Gil said, his tone gentle.

Harry decided it was time for a shower. 

He went into the bathroom and firmly closed the door. But standing beneath the hot spray of water didn’t provide its usual relief. The image of Gil’s arse and the sound of Malfoy’s pained moan sat uncomfortably juxtaposed in Harry’s head, leaving him feeling aroused and uneasy and generally disturbed. Though his cock had perked up the second Gil had walked into the room, Harry ignored his erection, unable to sink into thoughts of Gil when he knew Malfoy was only feet away, the ragged hole in his stomach exposed and raw. Instead, he stood in the shower and let his mind go blank until his body calmed and he could go back into the room without looking like a complete idiot. 

It took much longer than it should have, given the circumstances. But perhaps that wasn’t entirely surprising. Harry’s libido had been absent for months, maybe even years. On the rare occasion it woke up, he supposed it made sense that it was hard to put back to sleep.

Once his erection had subsided, Harry shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. He took his time drying off, hoping Gil would leave before he’d finished in the bathroom – he really didn’t want to face those jeans again. Harry pulled on a t-shirt and trousers, towelled at his hair, and at last had no reasons left to linger in the bathroom. 

When he emerged, he found Gil gone and Malfoy waiting for him, his grey eyes lit up with amusement.

"Don't worry,” Malfoy said, grinning. “The coast is clear."

Harry felt his pulse pick up. He crossed over to his own bed without responding.

“Well, now I understand why I haven’t seen Ginny Weasley coming by to visit,” Malfoy drawled. “I know Gryffindors aren’t much for subtlety, but good god, Potter.”

Harry’s head snapped around. “What?”

“What?” Malfoy asked incredulously.

“Yes, what?” Harry repeated, and now his heart was pounding so hard he felt sure Malfoy must be able to hear it.

Malfoy gave him a pointed look. “You were ogling Gil.”

Oh god. _Oh god._

“I was not!”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Please, you were drooling over him like he was made of chocolate. And it’s not the first time; I’ve seen you do it before.”

“You’re crazy,” Harry said, but the denial sounded weak even to his own ears.

“ _Many_ times before,” Malfoy insisted.

“I-” Harry cut off, dazed.

Harry wasn’t ashamed that he found men attractive. He’d known for a while he fancied people of both genders, and had accepted it in a general kind of way. He’d never really had a chance to sit down with his feelings and explore what it all meant, what it might look like – his life had been nothing but war for so long, and sex and romance had been so far from his mind. And there had been Ginny; a year ago he would have sworn he was going to marry her when the war was finally over. So it hadn’t mattered much and, besides, he hadn’t had the time to dwell on it. Now that he did have time, well, for the most part, he didn’t really think about it, but he didn’t _not_ think about it, either. 

He certainly hadn’t _told_ anyone, though, not even Hermione. And now here was Malfoy, and he just knew, just said it out loud like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like it was no big deal. 

As Harry’s stunned silence dragged on, Malfoy’s amused look shifted to one of alarm. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look like you’re choking on your own tongue.”

Harry just shook his head. He couldn’t speak.

“Breathe, Potter,” Malfoy said and demonstrated, taking in a slow, deep breath and then exhaling with a sigh. “Merlin, I never would have said anything if I’d realised you were going to react like a mental patient. You were just being so obvious about it, it never occurred to me I wasn’t supposed to notice.”

Harry looked at him dully. 

“Look, you don’t need to panic,” Malfoy continued. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Harry snorted, but almost immediately his mind began to race. He’d only been shocked at being noticed and called out. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Malfoy might _tell_ somebody. His mind spun with a hundred versions of how it could all play out. None of them were good. He sat heavily in his chair. 

“Potter,” Malfoy said, his voice firm. “Potter, look at me.”

Harry raised his eyes to meet Malfoy’s. Malfoy’s expression was serious.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Malfoy said again. “I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but I owe you. We both know I owe you. And even if I didn’t, I still wouldn’t.”

Harry scowled at him. “Come on, Malfoy. If we were still at Hogwarts, you'd be telling everyone you knew. Hell, you'd be telling people you didn't know –Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived to Be a Big Bloody Ponce."

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Malfoy, you sold information about me to the _Daily Prophet_!"

"Four years ago!” Malfoy exclaimed, indignant. “And this is different. I wouldn't sell this information and I wouldn't spread it around."

"Oh, and why should I believe you? What makes this so different?"

Malfoy glared at him, hard. Harry saw the muscles in his jaw twitch.

"You are a complete fucking idiot,” Malfoy said, ice in every word.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks for clearing things up for me." 

“Fuck off, Potter.”

They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the day. In fact, Harry went out of his way not to so much as even look in Malfoy’s direction. He kept himself busy with his books and his magazines, distracting himself from the temptation to get into it with Malfoy. And it was a temptation – the anger and irritation were right there, prickling underneath his skin, urging him to pick a fight. But he focused on his reading and ignored it. This had the additional benefit of keeping his head busy enough that he could ignore the other matter demanding his attention - the issue of his sexuality and what was going to happen if and when he ever left the hospital and rejoined the real world. Harry passed the day this way, ignoring Malfoy and firmly _not_ thinking about anything. He could feel Malfoy’s eyes on him throughout the day, though; he knew if he looked over, he would find Malfoy watching him with a look that was angry and far too knowing.

***


	3. Chapter 3

The thing with stony silences was that they were hard to maintain when you were alone with someone in a small room with nowhere to go and little to do for days on end. Harry and Malfoy had given each other the cold shoulder for a few days, but then – as if by some unspoken agreement – had just let it go and slid back into their old routine. Which held them for a few days until a new problem emerged.

"Knight c-three to d-five,” Malfoy said. 

Harry moved the chess piece.

"No, no, no! To d-five! _D-five!_ "

Things had been boring and boring wasn't good. At least not where Malfoy was concerned. When Malfoy got bored, he got restless, and when he got restless, he looked for things to distract him. And the only distraction available was Harry. Apparently tired of reading novels and Quidditch magazines, he'd started asking questions, mostly about things Harry didn't want to think about, never mind talk about. Things like:

"Do you realise you've been sitting there staring at the wall for over two hours now? Just sitting there, barely blinking. You know that’s not normal, right?"

and

"Don't you miss being outside? Sunshine, fresh air, something besides these four walls? Seriously, Potter, how can you just stay in here when you could be out there?"

and

"So, have you ever actually had sex with a man or do you just think about them when you wank?"

A diversion had been necessary and Harry had struck upon the idea of wizard chess. Malfoy had quickly agreed, his eyes almost glowing when Lisa had procured a chessboard for them. They'd set it up immediately. Unfortunately, the set was old and the pieces had a tendency to fall asleep. With Malfoy immobilised, Harry was in charge of moving the comatose pieces for both of them.

They’d only been playing for fifteen minutes and it was already apparent that the whole thing was the worst idea Harry had ever had. He should have known better than to suggest they do anything remotely competitive, but he’d been lulled into complacency by the almost-camaraderie that had developed between them.

Well, he was paying for that now.

He hastily withdrew the piece in question and corrected the move. 

Malfoy huffed loudly. "Merlin save me from speccy idiots who don’t know d-five from e-four.”

Harry gave him a sour look. "Nice, Malfoy.

"It's not my fault you're ignorant."

"I'm not ignorant!" Harry had spent enough nights playing with Ron to have picked up a thing or two about chess. True, he’d never won, but it was _Ron_. Beating Ron at chess would be like beating Viktor Krum at Quidditch.

Malfoy sneered at him. "Potter, if you know a thing about chess, then I'm a Hufflepuff."

"I happen to know quite a bit about chess, thanks. Git."

"Oh, you do? So then you know I'm four moves away from winning."

"What?” Harry gaped at the board. “That's not possible!"

"I'm afraid it is,” Malfoy said with a smirk. “As much as it pains me to be the one to break it to you, you're abysmally bad at this game."

Harry glared at him. "You are such -" He broke off at the sound of voices in the hall. 

"You cannot keep me from seeing my son!" 

It was a woman’s voice, her tone cultured, haughty, but with real desperation in it. Malfoy's head snapped around toward the door when he heard it and he grimaced against the pain of the sudden movement. 

"I'm sorry, Mrs Malfoy, you can't go in there. You know that." That was the Auror at the door, Mills from the sound of his voice.

"Mum?" Malfoy whispered.

"He's my _son_ ," Narcissa said. 

"It's a condition of his treatment here.” Mills was using his professional voice – calm, reasonable, trying to contain the situation. Harry could just imagine how little effect it would have on Narcissa Malfoy. “He can't have visits from known Death Eaters or Death Eater associates."

But she was having none of it. "I insist you let me in. Open this door at once."

"Mum?" Malfoy's voice was louder now. He leant forward slightly, one arm clenched around his middle.

"I can't do that,” Mills said.

Malfoy turned to Harry, and there was a wild look to his eyes. "Potter, open the door."

Harry hesitated, concerned about escalating the situation. Just sitting forward a bit had drained all the colour from Malfoy’s face. "Are you sure?"

"Open the fucking door!" Malfoy snarled. 

Harry pushed out of his seat and crossed the room to pull open the heavy oak door. Narcissa stood directly across the threshold, her path blocked by Mills’ outstretched arm. When the door opened, she whirled around, her eyes sliding right past Harry, searching frantically for Malfoy. Spotting him, she pushed forward across Mills’ arm, her whole body straining towards Mafloy.

"Draco! Draco, darling! I'm sorry. They won't let me see you." The frustration and pain were clear on her face. There were tears in her voice and in her eyes. 

Harry had to look away.

"I know,” Malfoy said, emotion in his voice, too. “It's okay."

Mills inserted himself between them, blocking Narcissa’s line of vision. "Mrs Malfoy, you have to leave immediately."

Narcissa craned her neck around Mills’ shoulder. "Are you okay? Are they treating you well? They send reports, but I never know if I can trust them."

"I'm fine, Mum. You can trust the reports. Alvarez is a good Healer."

"Mrs Malfoy,” Mills said, his voice growing louder, his tone harder. Harry couldn’t see his face but he was sure Mills’ expression was hard, too. “If you don't leave immediately, I'm going to have use force." 

“Just give me a minute!" Narcissa snapped and pushed forward again.

It seemed to be one push too many, and Mills sprung into action. Instead of simply blocking her path with his arm, he grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her backward, away from the door. She gasped, surprised, and stumbled. Mills kept driving her back, tightening his grip to prevent her from falling.

"Let go of her!” Malfoy screamed.

“Draco!” Narcissa called out, her expression panicked. “Don’t move! Just stay still!”

Harry turned back to see Malfoy had struggled to sitting and was trying to twist his body towards the edge of the bed. The effort had opened up his wound. Blood was seeping through his bandages, staining the white of his t-shirt, a bright red splotch that grew even as Harry watched.

"Malfoy, are you mental?” Harry asked.

Malfoy ignored him and kept shouting at Mills. "I said let go of her!” 

Mills didn’t even look at Malfoy, his attention completely on Narcissa.

Malfoy turned to Harry; his eyes burned fever bright. “Potter, go help her. _Please._

“No!” Narcissa cried. “No, Potter. Stay with Draco. Help him! Please!”

Harry hesitated only a moment, his eyes flashing from Malfoy to Narcissa, then back to Malfoy again. He rushed over to Malfoy’s bed and gently tried to push him back towards his pillows. “You need to stay here.”

Malfoy slapped his hands away, scowling. “Stop it, you piece of shit. If you won’t help me, at least get the fuck out of my way.” He manoeuvred closer to the edge of the bed.

“Malfoy, you can’t-“

But Malfoy wasn’t listening. “Mum! Mum!”

It was over, though. Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Mills throw a hasty “ _Colloportus!_ ” over his shoulder as he corralled Narcissa down the hallway. The door to their room slammed shut with an echoing bang. Then there was silence.

Harry and Malfoy sat side by side on Malfoy’s bed. Malfoy gripped his waist and panted, his breath a rhythmic rasp full of pain and exhaustion. Moving must have been a huge effort for him. Sweat beaded his forehead and he was sheet white. 

He turned his head to glower at Harry. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why didn’t you help her?”

Harry didn’t say anything. It had been obvious what he had needed to do. To him, to Narcissa, to everyone but Malfoy. He felt bad about Narcissa being taken away, but he wasn’t sorry.

At Harry’s silence, Malfoy’s expression grew angrier still. “Get away from me. Get the fuck away from me.”

Harry shook his head. “No.”

“What do you mean, no? I said get away from me!”

“No.”

Angry tears sparkled in Malfoy’s eyes. “Fuck _off_ , Potter.” 

“No.”

“You know, I really hate you.”

“No.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

In fact, there were lots of things that Harry wanted to say, but he was pretty sure none of it mattered all that much at the moment.

Malfoy turned away from him, hissing in pain as he did so. Harry could hear him sniffling wetly and knew he was crying.

Harry shifted closer and waited. Malfoy didn’t say anything, so Harry shifted closer again. And again. And again, until he was tucked in right behind Malfoy. He waited again, just to be sure, and then he leant forward so that their shoulders touched and his chest was pressed against Malfoy’s back in a not-quite-embrace. 

At the contact, Malfoy tensed and Harry froze, unsure.

“Do you mind?” Harry asked.

“Of course I mind, you insufferable prat!” Malfoy snapped.

“Do you want me to leave?”

There was a long silence, and Harry was about to shift away, thinking he’d been mistaken, when Malfoy’s body relaxed back against his. “No.”

Malfoy began to cry in earnest then, wracking sobs that shook them both. Harry bent his head to Malfoy’s shoulder and rode it out with him. He had no idea what to say, so he just stayed with Malfoy and supported him as best he could with his body and his presence. They sat like that for several long minutes, breaking apart only when the Healers arrived to tend to Malfoy’s opened wound. As they spelled his bloody shirt off, Harry caught sight of the raw, gaping wound in Malfoy’s stomach and, above it, an old silvery scar that ran up his ribs, over his heart, stopping at the base of his throat.

Harry closed his eyes, images of Malfoy’s blood splattering across the tiles of the girls’ loo hitting him fast and hard. Harry’s breath turned fast and shallow and a wave of dizziness swept over him. With the smell of blood in his nose and the sound of Malfoy’s anguished moans in his ears, Harry felt an urge to run that was almost overwhelming. He forced himself to remain where he was, to open his eyes and be _present_ the way Malfoy needed him to be. Though he kept his gaze averted from Malfoy’s torso, Harry remained at Malfoy’s bedside, within arm’s reach if Malfoy decided he needed him.

When the Healers were finished, they gave Malfoy a sedative; they’d barely cleared the room before he was asleep. 

He was still snoring several hours later, when Harry had an idea. A simple idea, but so obvious, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. He went back to his half of the room and searched around for his shoes. He rarely bothered with them, so it took few minutes to locate them. He pulled his trainers on and then, for the first time since he’d arrived at St Mungo’s, Harry left his hospital room. 

There was an Auror outside his door though it wasn’t Mills; it was a young woman named Nayar. Harry assumed she’d been called in while Mills dealt with Narcissa. 

“Good afternoon, Mr Potter,” Nayar said with a nod. “Can I help you with something?”

“No, I’m just going to go for a walk.”

She blinked, clearly taken aback. Harry almost laughed. 

“Did you want me to arrange for someone to accompany you?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“The Head Auror was very clear that you were not to wander about the hospital unescorted.”

“I’m only going to the owlery. I’ll be right back.”

She frowned. “Still, I don’t think it’s wise –”

Harry cut her off. “If anything happens, I’ll take full responsibility. But nothing’s going to happen. I’ll be back before you know it. Besides, Malfoy is in there with enough sleeping and calming potions in him to drop a troll. I’d rather him not be unattended.”

He nodded politely and then walked away before she could say anything further. He was relieved when she didn’t follow him – he needed a bit of privacy if he was going to make his plan work.

***

Harry had received a substantial amount of mail since he’d arrived at the hospital, but he’d stopped looking at it after the first few weeks. In the same way that he found it too hard to have visitors, he found it too difficult to read the letters his friends sent. Between the questions they asked and the ones they so clearly wanted to ask but didn’t, their honest updates on their lives and the happenings outside the hospital and their more careful, superficial words, Harry found their notes agitating. So he’d stopped opening them. But he did get mail. Unlike Malfoy, he had no restrictions on his communications. When letters came in for him, they were checked for curses, hexes, and poisons, and then passed along to him. Most importantly, these checks were all done by spell. His letters were never opened before they got to him.

Still, he didn’t say anything about his plan to Malfoy until he actually held a letter from Narcissa Malfoy in his hand. It had taken longer than he’d thought it would, but he supposed there was a process to the security checks. And really, it didn’t matter. It had arrived, that was the main thing.

“Why, Potter, a smile like that over a piece of mail?” Malfoy drawled. “If I didn’t know how completely hopeless you were in all things romantic, I might think you had a love letter in your hand.”

Harry turned his smile on Malfoy, not caring that he looked like a fool. “Well, you might just be right,” he said and he flopped down into the chair beside Malfoy’s bed. “It is a love letter of a sort. Only it’s not for me. It’s for you.”

Malfoy gave him a puzzled look. Harry opened the letter and laid it on Malfoy’s lap. Malfoy picked it up, his movements slow and careful, and lifted it closer to read. Harry watched as his eyes scanned over the page, his expression shifting, emotion flitting over his features as he read.

His eyes flicked up to find Harry’s. “Potter, how did you...?”

“I got the idea a couple days ago. I went to the owlery while you were asleep and sent your mum a letter. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. You might not be able to get letters from your parents, but I can.”

“But...”

“No one checks my mail beyond a brief safety scan. No one opens it. No one reads it. And your parents are smart enough to be careful about how they send it here. It came by general owl with no return address.”

Malfoy stared down at the letter in his hands. The pages trembled slightly. After a long moment, he looked back at Harry.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Harry left Malfoy to read – and reread – his letter in peace. He drifted back to his own bed and paged through his magazines. He couldn’t seem to keep the smile from his face. He knew it was a bit ridiculous to be so pleased about the letter but he didn’t care. He _was_ pleased and it felt good to be happy for a change. Malfoy seemed pleased, too – every time Harry glanced over his way, he had a smile on his face every bit as big as Harry’s.

***

Malfoy’s parents wrote every other day after that and Malfoy’s mood lifted considerably. For the first time since he’d arrived, he began to talk about leaving St Mungo’s, about going back home once he was healed and some of the things he might do when he did. It made Harry glad to see it, but it unsettled him, too. Surprising as it was, he’d come to enjoy Malfoy’s company. He was going to miss him when he was gone.

Harry, on the other hand, thought less and less about life “back home” and what he might do once he was healed. All progress on his situation seemed to have stopped. Greenley and Rottman made appearances every few days but it had been weeks since they’d had anything new to offer. They didn’t even bother pretending there was anything on the horizon – there were no comments about interesting articles they’d read recently, case studies they’d come across, or knowledgeable colleagues they could consult. Harry got the impression they’d largely given up. Not that he blamed them – he’d largely given up, too, resigned to spending the foreseeable future in St Mungo’s.

Which is why he was surprised when Greenley appeared one morning toward the end of November with an unfamiliar witch in tow.

“Mr Potter, there’s someone here I’d like you to meet. This is Healer Mason. She’s visiting from Canada and will be with us for the next two months. She specialises in psychic injury. I thought it might be of benefit for you two to meet and discuss your difficulties. Healer Mason may have some fresh insights for you.”

Apparently, that was all the introduction Greenley planned to provide – he gave Harry and the new Healer both a curt nod and strode out the door.

Unlike the St Mungo’s Healers, Healer Mason didn’t wear the traditional green robes. Instead, she wore a pair of worn-looking jeans and a chunky-knit woollen sweater. Her hair was frizzy and grey; she wore it pulled back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She had a gently lined face and dark brown eyes that warmed when she smiled at Harry. 

“Hello, Mr Potter.”

Harry didn’t smile back – the term “psychic injury” had struck a sour note with him. “I’m not crazy.”

“That’s up for debate,” Malfoy piped up from the other side of the room.

Harry glared at him but Healer Mason looked amused.

“I don’t recall saying that you were,” she said.

Harry turned his attention back to her. “I’m also not stupid.”

“That’s just plain untrue,” Malfoy called over.

Healer Mason glanced over at Malfoy and her lips quirked up in an almost-laugh before she refocused on Harry. “Mr Potter, we seem to be getting off on the wrong foot. Can we back up a bit? So, hi. My name is Jillian.” She gave him another warm smile.

Harry didn’t smile back. “Harry.”

“How are you, Harry?”

“Sane,” he replied, and heard Malfoy snort in response. “And you?”

“Also sane,” Healer Mason quipped. “Thanks for asking.”

Harry couldn’t help smiling a bit at that.

“So,” Healer Mason continued. “Now that we’ve each declared our mental capacities, let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of a Confundus Charm? Obliviation? A Confusing Concoction?

Harry nodded. 

“I know you’re familiar with possession,” she said, her tone growing more serious. “A lot of the details of the Death Eater trials reached us in Canada. I read about what happened to Ginevra Weasley.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t sure where she was going with the conversation but his brief warming toward her was cooling rapidly. 

As if sensing this, Healer Mason pushed ahead quickly. “I know all these things seem very different but they all fall under the rubric of psychic injuries. This is what I study – spells and potions that act on the mind instead of the body.”

Harry wasn’t impressed. “I’ve already been checked for that sort of thing.”

“I know.” Healer Mason nodded. “Look, to be honest, I’m not really into beating around the bush. Let me just tell you what I’m thinking and then you can let me know your thoughts, okay? First, let me be up front about something - I’ve been working in the field of psychic injury for almost fifty years and, professionally speaking, your case is absolutely fascinating. I’d love a chance to work with you. So that’s what’s in it for me. What’s in it for you is that I’ve been working in the field of psychic injury for almost fifty years. I’ve travelled all over the world and seen more than you could possibly imagine. I’m willing to put my professional reputation on the line and say that my skills and knowledge are quite different from those of the other Healers you’ve worked with.”

Harry held his silence, still unimpressed. So far, all the specialists he’d seen had declared themselves to be “experts” but he was still sitting in the hospital and not one of them had even come close to guessing the truth. Or what Harry suspected to be the truth, anyway. 

“Like Healer Greenley was saying,” Healer Mason continued, “I’m here for the next two months. I think I can help you. I know you’ve had a lot of dead ends. I understand that you’re probably pretty frustrated but, really, what have you got to lose by giving me a shot?” She paused a moment, but when it became clear Harry wasn’t going to say anything, she gave a small shrug. “Think it over. Let me know what you decide.”

Then she smiled one last time at Harry, nodded at Malfoy, and disappeared back out the door, closing it quietly behind her.

As soon as it closed, Malfoy burst into laughter. “Oh, Potter. This is too good. You’re psychically injured. And here I thought you were just a wanker.” He gave Harry a cheeky grin.

Harry felt an answering grin tug at his own lips. “Shut up, prat.”

“And they flew her in all the way from Canada? They must really think you’re crazy.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I don’t think she’s here just to work with me.”

“Ah, but she didn’t say that, did she? She just said that she was mysteriously “here” for two months.”

Malfoy prattled on a while longer, clearly enjoying himself, but Harry tuned him out. Whatever had brought Mason to St Mungo’s, she was right about one thing – her field of expertise was different than those of the other Healers he’d seen. And it was much more closely aligned with the real problem. Harry tried to tell himself it was a good thing – he _wanted_ answers, after all – but the truth was, he was terrified of Healer Mason and the things they might learn together.

***

It was several days before Harry saw Healer Mason – or Jillian, as she insisted he call her – again. When he did, it was immediately obvious she’d spent the time reading the reports written by the specialists who’d come before her. And she’d actually _read_ them, not just skimmed them before asking Harry the same questions he’d answered over and over again. The questions she did ask were specific and insightful, and by the end of the week, she had a detailed strategy of how she wanted to work with him to learn more about his condition. She’d left it to him to agree or not. 

He was still undecided. He said as much to Malfoy over breakfast. 

Malfoy looked at him as though he was insane. “Potter, please tell me you’re joking. This is why you’re here. Why wouldn’t you let her help you?”

There was no safe way to explain it, though, so Harry just shrugged and changed the subject. He nodded at a letter in Malfoy’s lap. “So, how’s your mum?”

Malfoy gave him a disapproving look for a moment longer but then followed Harry’s lead and allowed the subject to drop. “Good. She says, yet again, to thank you for helping us with this. And to ‘say it like you mean it and not like you’re only doing it because you have a wand to your head.’ So little faith in me, my own mother.”

Harry laughed. “Well, if I ever see her again, I’ll be sure to stress what a polite and gracious roommate you’ve been.”

Malfoy affected a haughty sniff. “As well you should. I’m the very model of decorum. Every patient should be so lucky as to have a roommate like me.”

“Yes, I don’t know how I’ll fill the gaping hole you’re sure to leave behind when you go,” Harry deadpanned.

“Ah, Potter. You joke to distract from the kernel of truth. You’ll miss me.”

Which was true, and Harry suspected they both knew it. Just like they both knew Malfoy would likely be leaving sooner rather than later. The Healers had estimated it would take three or four months for the poison to clear his system. They were coming up on three months now and Malfoy’s improvements were noticeable. He’d regained some of his colour and energy. He was brighter, more alert, and able to stay awake for increasingly longer periods of time. Harry suspected it would only be a week or two more before Malfoy was going home.

“Have the Healers given you any idea when you might be going home?” he asked.

Malfoy shook his head. “They can’t be sure exactly, but they’re starting to do daily checks about my readiness for healing spells. As soon as the poison’s cleared, they’re going to try to repair my stomach. If it works, they’ll monitor me for a few days, then I’ll go home.”

“And then what?”

“Then I’m at home.”

“What about your safety?” As Malfoy moved towards recovery, Harry had become more and more concerned about the fact that they hadn’t caught the person who’d done this to him yet.

“Apparently, the Aurors have been working with my parents to increase security to the house and grounds. Plus, they plan to hire private bodyguards.”

Harry immediately flashed to an image of Malfoy flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. Those poor bodyguards didn’t know what they were in for. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. It’s not like we have a lot of options.”

It sounded like Harry’s idea of hell. “Won’t it be weird, having someone hanging around all the time?”

Malfoy shook his head. “It won’t be any different than it is here. Except that I won’t have any speccy gits in my rooms, frustrating me with their poor chess-playing abilities and keeping me up all night with their subconscious angst.”

“Shut it.”

“What about you?” Malfoy asked, his tone casual. 

A little too casual, actually; it made Harry suspicious. “What about me?” 

“How much longer do you plan on staying here?”

“Um, until they fix whatever’s wrong with me.”

Malfoy hesitated, apparently undecided about something. Then he seemed to make up his mind; his eyes took on a determined glint and he set his jaw as he looked at Harry. “Did you ever think maybe there’s nothing wrong with you?” 

A jolt of anxiety squeezed at Harry’s heart, the way it always did whenever someone tried to talk to him about his “problems.” He forced a laugh. "There’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear you say.”

Malfoy frowned. “I’m serious. I’ve been with you every day, all day, for months now. You say you came back wrong, but, I have to tell you, from where I’m sitting you seem the same as ever. Maybe tired. Maybe sad. Maybe angry. But so are we all. It was a war. No one’s going to come out the other side the same as before."

Harry stared. He couldn’t believe he was getting the war trauma lecture from Malfoy, of all people. Malfoy, who should know better, who should know that the possibility of continued evil was real and ever-present. Who should know that Voldemort had “died” and come back more than once. 

Malfoy just looked at him expectantly. Harry looked back, trying to keep his expression neutral. He really didn’t want to fight about this. Malfoy didn’t back down though; he just kept _looking_ at Harry.

"It's not just war trauma,” Harry ground out after another minute had passed.

"What makes you so sure?" Malfoy pressed.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, trying to tamp down on the hot rush of anger rising inside him. "I just know, okay?"

"No, it's not okay."

Harry’s eyes snapped open to find Malfoy watching him intently. 

"You're hiding here,” Malfoy said. “From the girlfriend who doesn't know you prefer men, from the families whose kids you think you should have saved, from the friends who betrayed you and now you don't know what to do with them, from I don't know who. Maybe just yourself. But you're hiding."

"What would you know about it?" 

"Potter, I had Voldemort in my house for a year. Walking up and down the halls every day, a flock of violent crazy people following in his wake. You think I don't know fear when I see it? You think I don't understand the urge to hide and hope that it all goes away?"

Harry looked away, his jaw clenched.

Malfoy continued on, unperturbed. "The problem is, it doesn't. It just waits there, growing stronger, eating away at your life until you’re stuck spending all of your days alone, limited to the one or two spaces that feel safe. And then eventually even those don't feel safe anymore."

Harry felt a stinging behind his eyes, tears threatening. He blinked them back, refusing to let them come. He suspected Malfoy knew they were there anyway. He was watching Harry, his expression full of concern.

"Don't let him do this to you,” Malfoy said softly. “Don't let him win."

Harry shook his head. "It's not that simple."

"It never is. And it always is."

"You don't understand."

"So tell me."

The thing was, a part of him wanted to. A part of him really wanted to tell someone all of it, about the thing that had lived inside him, about how he’d had to die to get it out, about how he wasn’t sure that it had worked after all. He wanted to spill out all his fear and anger and sadness and have someone else hold it for a little while so he could get some distance from it. So he could rest.

But that wasn’t how things worked. It was his burden and his alone. Given to him by Voldemort and Dumbledore without his knowledge or permission. Talking about it wouldn’t change that. Nothing would.

Sensing that Harry was done talking, Malfoy gave a heavy sigh. “Fine. But one day you’re going to have to talk to someone, Potter. It will eat you alive if you don’t and you deserve better than that. If there’s anyone who deserves a good life, it’s you. And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I will firmly deny it.”

Malfoy gave him a sad sort of grin. Harry couldn’t bring himself to answer it.

***

Harry’s life at St Mungo’s didn’t really change much from day to day. It wasn’t something that bothered him. He was quite content with the quiet and the feeling of being completely removed from the world. He liked only having to deal with a few people and, for the most part, only having to interact with them in a very limited way. He knew it wasn’t necessarily good, this small, half-life sort of existence he was living, but he felt like he could manage it most days. Or at least he had felt that way. Lately, though, things were shifting. There was a sense of something building, something coming. Change was in the air and it had Harry crawling out of his skin. 

A large part of it had to do with Jillian. He’d agreed to her treatment plan, partly because he wanted to and partly because he felt like he had to – if he wasn’t going to at least try to figure out what was wrong with him, then he really had no business taking up space in the hospital. As part of their work together, she made him come to her office. Every day. Her office was down a different wing on a different floor. It took Harry five or ten minutes to get there. Five or ten minutes that felt like an hour as he walked down the hallways, saw people, felt their eyes on him, heard them whisper his name. She insisted it was necessary that they work in her office but so far Harry hadn’t figured out why. Mostly they just sat there while she asked him questions and he tried to think of ways to answer without saying too much. Every day, he had a sense of dread as he neared her office door, worried that today would be the day she would put the pieces together, would ask the question he didn’t want to answer, would see the monster inside him.

His anxiety also had a lot to do with Malfoy, too. Malfoy was coming back to life a little more each day. It was like watching rain coming to a parched field, seeing limp plants grow strong and lush again. On the one hand, Harry was thrilled to see Malfoy improving. He wanted Malfoy to get well and rejoin his life. On the other, each day that Malfoy grew stronger was a day he grew a little further away from Harry, that much closer to leaving the hospital, and Harry, behind. Harry watched Malfoy with a sense of loss almost like an anticipatory bereavement. He never would have guessed he’d feel that way about Malfoy leaving, but he did, and it coloured every interaction Harry had with Malfoy, making him surly and prone to overreacting to Malfoy’s playful teasing.

Then there was the fact that the better Malfoy felt, the more he looked toward the future, and for some reason that future included wanting Harry to get better, too. Malfoy hadn’t confronted him directly again, but he was very interested in Harry’s progress with Jillian. And he was always making not-so-subtle comments about hiding, being one’s own worst enemy, and other such things. Harry knew Malfoy was trying to help, but his words were like little jabs to Harry’s psyche, hits to places that were already hurting and sensitive. 

Things were shifting and Harry was anxious, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that his nightmares started to worsen. He took Dreamless Sleep as much as he was allowed but the nights he went without were harrowing. Harry knew he was approaching his breaking point. He just had no idea what would happen when he finally hit it.

***

_Harry and Jillian are in her office. He sits in the squashy red armchair that stands in one corner. He is jammed as far back in the chair as he can get, curled up almost into a ball. His legs are pulled in tight against him, his knees under his chin. Jillian kneels in front of him. Her face is full of concern._

_“You don’t have to be afraid,” she says, her voice soft and kind._

_Harry ducks his head, looks away. He can’t bear her compassion. “You don’t know. You don’t know what I am.”_

_Jillian dips her head, tries to catch his eye. “What are you?”_

_“A monster,” Harry whispers, tears burning in his eyes._

_“You look like a normal boy to me.”_

_“I’m not. I’m Voldemort’s monster.”_

_“You’re not. You’re Harry. Just Harry.”_

_Harry shakes his head. He knows what he is. She just can’t see it. None of them can see it, but he knows all the same. “Not anymore. Maybe once, long ago. But now I’m his. I’m Voldemort’s monster, through and through.”_

_Slowly, gently, Jillian reaches out and takes Harry’s left hand. She pulls it towards her, extending his arm, turning it so they can both see his smooth, unmarked forearm._

_“How can you be Voldemort’s if you don’t bear his Mark?” she asks._

_“But I do.”_

_She smiles patiently. “No, you don’t. Look.” She nods down at his forearm, gives it a shake for emphasis._

_Harry pulls his hand from her grasp. “It’s there, you just can’t see it.”_

_Jillian shakes her head. “No, Harry. There’s nothing there. It’s just your fear making you imagine things.”_

_But Harry knows. “You’re wrong.”_

_“Harry –“_

_“You’re wrong!”_

_He bolts out of the chair, knocking her over as he rushes to her desk. He snatches up the letter opener that sits there._

_“Look!”_

_He stabs it into his arm, into the tender flesh just below the crook of his elbow. He thrusts downward with a vicious stroke. Blood spurts, runs down his arm in rivulets, drips from the tips of his fingers and pools on the carpet._

_Jillian looks on, frozen in horror, but Harry isn’t done. Throwing the letter opener aside, he digs the fingers of his right hand into the wound and peels back layers of skin and muscle to expose the bone. It is hard to see, spread across bone and tendon and covered in blood, but there is no mistaking the shape branded there, the black image burnt into his very core. The Dark Mark._

_Harry thrusts his flayed arm under Jillian’s nose. “You see? I am his. Voldemort’s monster, through and through.”_

Harry jolted awake, flying up to sitting. He felt confused, still half in the dream. A sound hung in the air, a word just spoken, someone calling his name.

“Potter!”

He turned and saw Malfoy half out of his bed.

_Shit._

Harry jammed his glasses onto his face and rushed across the room. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You were obviously having a nightmare, so I was coming to wake you up, you ungrateful sod,” Malfoy snapped.

“You could have just shouted at me.” Harry settled on the bed beside Malfoy. Tucking one shoulder under Malfoy’s arm, he helped manoeuvre him back against his pillows.

Malfoy hissed as they moved together. “I did. I’ve been shouting at you for the last five minutes.”

“A Stinging Hex, then.”

Malfoy looked at him, horrified. “You want me to cast a Stinging Hex on a traumatised person while he’s having nightmares? For fuck’s sake, Potter.”

“I’d rather you’d have done that than ripped your side open again.” 

Malfoy settled himself against the headboard and then scowled at Harry. “I’m fine. I was going slow.”

Harry highly doubted Malfoy was fine but he let it go. He was in no shape for an argument.

As if sensing his vulnerability, Malfoy caught Harry’s eyes with an unyielding look and said, “Tell me what you were dreaming.”

Harry glanced away. “Nothing. I don’t remember.”

“You kept saying, ‘I’m Voldemort’s monster.’”

Harry shook his head. “It was just a dream.”

Malfoy let out a sigh that sounded tired and full of sorrow. “You have to tell someone eventually,” he said, his voice gentle and kind, like Jillian’s had been in his dream. “You have to let someone help you.”

“No one can help me.”

“I know it’s been frustrating –“

Harry cut him off. “No, you don’t understand. No one can help me.”

He looked back at Malfoy and saw Malfoy watching him with a compassion Harry had only ever received from a handful of people in his life. It shocked him, shook him to his core, and he was already so shaken. He had so few defences in the face of Malfoy’s genuine concern and before he knew it, he was talking, telling Malfoy everything. About the Horcruxes, about King’s Cross Station, about the wands and the lore and the magic. About his fear that Voldemort still lived inside him, a fragment of soul hidden away so deeply no one would ever find it, but poisoning Harry nonetheless, turning him angry and vicious and cruel.

Malfoy said nothing while Harry talked; he just listened. The moonlight shone brightly through their window, illuminating Malfoy’s face so that Harry could see his reaction to these revelations, could see every emotion that passed over Malfoy’s pointed features. He saw shock, fear, anger, revulsion. He saw all the things he himself had been feeling for months now reflected there on Malfoy’s face. And he saw that unexpected compassion, a constant through it all.

“Now do you see?” Harry asked when he came to the end of his story. “There’s no test they can do, no potion they can give me. I can’t even talk to anyone about it because no one can ever know. That knowledge is too dangerous to share, no matter how good the reason.”

Malfoy shook his head. “You don’t know for sure that he’s...” He trailed off as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“Yes, I do,” Harry said. “I feel him. I have all this anger, this rage. I see people I love suffering and I want to hurt them more. There’s all this violence inside me just waiting to be let out, unleashed, and it’s aimed at people who’ve done nothing wrong, who’ve only ever treated me with kindness. When I think about some of the things I’ve thought, some of the things I’ve wanted to do, it makes me sick. No normal human being would think like that.”

“Potter...”

“He’s there, inside me, eating away at me. Trying to make me his monster. Trying to turn me into him.”

Malfoy said nothing, but he took Harry’s hand in his, folding his fingers around Harry’s and holding on tightly. His hand was as warm and soft as Harry remembered and at its touch, the tears came. They were welling up in his eyes and spilling over before he could even think to try to hold them back, and then he was clinging to Malfoy’s hand and sobbing out all the terror and anger he’d been trying to keep down for months. It poured out of him, bursting forth in great heaving sobs that tore his throat and wracked his body. It went on and on; every time Harry thought he was coming to the end of it, a new wave would hit him and he’d be crying again, as deep and as hard as before. And through it all, Malfoy held his hand, his grip never loosening, his fingers tight around Harry’s, anchoring him as they rode out the storm together.

***

Malfoy tried to talk to Harry about it the next day and the day after that. And the day after that. Harry blocked him each time, refusing to talk about it, getting up and leaving the room when necessary. It was a dirty trick – obviously, Malfoy couldn’t follow him – but Harry didn’t care. He’d given in to a moment of weakness when he’d told Malfoy about his fears. He had no intention of talking about it again or telling anyone else, no matter what Malfoy thought he should do.

***

By the following week, they’d managed to re-establish a tentative peace between them. Harry could tell that Malfoy still had many things he wanted to say, but he wasn’t trying to say them anymore and that was good enough for Harry. 

They were sitting together, Malfoy in his bed, Harry in the chair beside it, laughing about the latest _Daily Prophet_ headlines when Lisa came in for Malfoy’s morning check-up and bandage change. 

Harry hurried to get his things together for his shower.

"Well, Mr Malfoy,” Lisa said. “Let's have a look, shall we?"

“Sounds good,” Malfoy replied cheerfully.

They both fell silent as Lisa did her routine screening spells. Harry barely paid attention to the light coming from the tip of Lisa’s wand, its familiar cycling through shades of red, blue, and green. When it turned a light, clear lavender, though, it stopped him in his tracks, halfway between his bed and the bathroom door.

Malfoy’s eyes were wide. "Um, is that bad?”

Lisa broke into a wide smile. "No, I think it might be good. It might be very good." She turned her beaming smile on Malfoy. "Hold on a bit, I'll be right back."

Harry abandoned his shower plans and took up his seat next to Malfoy again. They looked at each other; Malfoy’s eyes shone with excitement.

Lisa returned a moment later with Healer Alvarez in tow. 

"Good morning, Mr Malfoy," the Healer said, pulling out his wand. “I hear there are some interesting things occurring.”

He waved his wand over Malfoy's torso and the same lavender light shone forth from its tip. He cast again, and then again, and then did a few other spells that Harry didn't recognise, producing all kinds of new colours and sounds from his wand. Then Alvarez, too, smiled broadly at Malfoy.

"It looks like we have some good news,” he said. “The poison has cleared your system. We should be able to heal your wound today."

Malfoy blinked. "Today?"

"Yes.”

“As in _today_ today?” He looked over to Harry, disbelief plain on his face, and then back to Alavarez.

Alvarez laughed. “As in right now, if you’d like."

"Really?"

"I see no reason why we should wait. Unless you've come to enjoy the constant pain."

“No, no,” Malfoy said quickly. “I don’t think much of the pain. Let’s do it.”

"Wonderful. Let me get Healer Johnson and we'll get started.” He turned to Lisa. “Lisa, could you get Mr Malfoy prepped for us?"

Lisa nodded. "Of course, Healer."

It seemed to take no time at all. Lisa had Malfoy’s bandages off and his wound sterilised by the time Alvarez returned with Johnson. The two Healers worked together to perform a series of healing spells, stitching together layers of skin and muscle. Then they applied several balms to Malfoy’s skin to soothe any itching and prevent infection. By the time Harry dared to take a closer look, there was nothing to see but the smooth expanse of Malfoy’s stomach, a blotch of redness all that remained of the wound that had nearly split him in half for months.

“Now, I want you to stay in bed for the rest of the day. I know you’re eager to move around, but we need to make sure this healing holds before we take any risks. With any luck, we’ll have you home for Christmas. I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours but you can always ring if you need anything.”

Malfoy’s smile was so wide Harry thought his cheeks must be hurting. “Thank you, Healer Alvarez, Healer Johnson. You have no idea... Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Alvarez replied warmly, and then he looked at Harry. “Mr Potter, see that he stays in bed, all right?”

Harry nodded. 

Malfoy turned his blinding smile on Harry. “Can you believe this?”

Harry forced himself to return the smile. “It’s amazing.”

Malfoy laughed, the sound so free and joyful it made Harry’s heart hurt. He stretched his smile wider, trying to emulate Malfoy’s joy, or at least mimic it on the surface. He was happy for Malfoy, he really was, but he couldn’t help thinking that the loss he’d been anticipating with dread had finally arrived.

***

The next few days flew by in a blur. Harry had thought he and Malfoy might be able to spend a bit of time together before he left, but it seemed that every minute of the day was filled with Healers, mediwitches, and mediwizards, with tests and instructions and a million other things that left no time for anything else. And Malfoy was so worn out from it all that he just fell asleep at the end of the day, not waking until late in the morning. If Harry was lucky they might have the odd twenty minutes of quiet together but they’d barely seem to get settled into a conversation and then someone was at their door again, whisking Malfoy away for another round of something or other.

And then it was time for Malfoy to leave. After months of sharing the hospital room, they had only half an hour left before two Aurors were to arrive to escort Malfoy safely home.

In a reverse of their usual pattern, Harry was sitting on his bed and Malfoy was sitting in the bedside chair. Malfoy had a stack of biscuits on a plate next to him and was single-mindedly working his way through them. It had been months since he’d been able to eat solid food and, judging from the way he was jamming biscuits in his mouth, he was determined to make up for lost time. 

“You’re going to make yourself sick, you know,” Harry said. He felt a bit sick just watching.

Malfoy shrugged and grinned, biscuit crumbs stuck to his lips. “So what if i do? It might actually feel good to vomit. Let my guts do their job and all that.”

Harry laughed. “You’re seriously deranged. You know that, right?”

“And yet, you’re the one who’s going to miss me.” Malfoy quirked an eyebrow at him. “What does that say about you?”

There was a pause and then something in Malfoy’s expression shifted and Harry knew what was coming next.

“Potter,” Malfoy began.

“Don’t,” Harry said, cutting him off. “Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t.”

Malfoy looked like he was going to protest, but then he stopped and his face turned thoughtful. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Okay.”

They spent the little time they had left eating biscuits and talking about nothing in particular. When the Aurors arrived and it was time to go, Harry held out his hand for Malfoy to shake. Malfoy took Harry’s hand in both of his own and squeezed it tightly.

“Take care of yourself, Potter,” he said, and Harry could see in his face all the things that he wanted to say and was holding back.

“You, too,” he replied, tightening his fingers around Malfoy’s hand in return.

Malfoy gave him a smile that was too full of emotion for Harry to even begin to interpret it, and then he let go of Harry’s hand and was gone.

***


	4. Chapter 4

Life without Malfoy was even harder than Harry had thought it would be. As with the hand-holding when Malfoy had first arrived, Harry didn’t realise how much Malfoy’s mere presence had helped him until it was gone. But there was no denying that Harry was falling apart without him. Without the structure of their routine, Harry found himself sitting and staring out the window for hours at a time. Without Malfoy’s humour, Harry had nothing to pull him away from dark thoughts. Without Malfoy’s company, Harry retreated into himself more and more.

His deterioration did not go unnoticed. Lisa tried to coax him into conversation, but he brushed her off. Gil offered to play a round of chess, but Harry declined. Jillian was more direct, challenging him to speak about what was happening now that Malfoy had left, but he refused. She pushed him harder, and he stopped talking altogether. By the end of his first week without Malfoy, Harry was the worst he’d been since he’d arrived at St Mungo’s.

So he really wasn’t prepared when he sat down in Jillian’s office one morning and she told him that Malfoy had been to see her.

Hurt slammed into him. Malfoy had been there and hadn’t even stopped in to say hello?

Jillian’s next words, though, left him reeling. 

“He told me you think you might have a part of Voldemort's soul inside you."

Harry clenched the arms of his chair, his knuckles white. 

Jillian crossed the room, knelt down in front of him just like she had in his dream. "Why didn't you want to tell me?" she asked.

Harry swallowed, trying to get the tightness in his throat to release. Jillian waited, patient and mild.

Harry cleared his throat. "It's dangerous knowledge. And there's no way to know, anyway."

Jillian gave him a puzzled look. "What makes you say that?"

"He lived inside me for sixteen years without me knowing. Without anyone knowing. Not even Dumbledore."

"If you believe that, then why are you here? Why the testing and the specialists?

“I suppose I keep hoping someone will prove otherwise.”

“But you haven’t even told them what they’re really looking for,” Jillian pointed out.

“I know it doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t really matter. Like I said before, it’s not possible anyway. To know for sure.”

Jillian sat back on her heels and gave Harry a considering look. "What would you say if I told you there was a way to know? That I could even tell you now, today?"

“I’d wonder why you were lying to me.”

Jillian grinned at his answer. “Fair enough.” She got to her feet and went back to her seat. “I understand your fear in talking about Horcruxes, you know. It's dark magic. Very dark. But it's not as secret as you seem to think. Here in the UK, there is a very sharp division between light and dark magic, especially in the last few decades. Which isn't surprising, given that you've had to deal with both Grindelwald and Voldemort in relatively close succession. In other parts of the world, though, these things blur together more. Not that it would be seen as acceptable, but the idea of souls travelling, inhabiting objects, sharing bodies – these are things that are talked about more openly. There are some countries where most people would even encounter such events at least once or twice in their lifetimes."

She looked to Harry for his reaction. He kept quiet, waiting to hear what more she had to say.

Seeing that he wasn’t going to speak, Jillian continued. "When I was young, one of my teachers was very knowledgeable about such things. Possession, actually, was his area of interest. I know you're familiar with possession. He was the one who first sparked my interest in psychic injury, not just possession but all divisions of and intrusions into the mind and the spirit or soul. I've spent fifty years travelling all around the world studying such phenomena. I've met and helped release at least a hundred possession victims. I've worked with people who were held under Imperius Curse for years, forced to do things they never would have been able to imagine on their own. I've seen souls trapped in objects, in trees, in animals. I've held Horcruxes in my hands. And I've met four human Horcruxes."

Harry stared at her. Four human Horcruxes.

For the first time since that morning at the Burrow, he felt a small flare of hope.

"I know you feel alone, but you aren't,” Jillian said. “Let me help you, Harry."

"What would I have to do?" Harry asked.

"Well, first we would do a spell. Or a series of spells, actually. It's not a short process – it takes a few hours – and while not painful, it can be somewhat uncomfortable. But it will tell us whether or not you're alone in there."

"And then?"

She shrugged. "Then we deal with what we find out."

"And if...” He trailed off, unable to voice the question.

“If?” Jillian prompted.

Harry steeled himself. “If Voldemort's still inside me, can you get him out?"

She hesitated only a moment before answering. "The short answer is probably, but I'd rather not jump ahead and get all caught up in the contingencies and the what if's. Let's find out if he's there first. Then we'll worry about the next step."

He knew what she was saying made sense but he couldn’t help thinking she was avoiding a nasty truth –  
maybe there was no way to get Voldemort out of him, after all.

Jillian clapped her hands together, startling Harry from his thoughts. "So what do you say? Do you want to do this?"

Harry blinked. "Right now?"

Jillian nodded. "If you like. Or you can take some time, think it over."

He shook his head. It had to be now, before he could talk himself out of it. "No, I don't need to think it over. I'd like to do it now."

"Is there anyone you'd like to call? Anyone you'd like to have with you?"

His mind flashed to the feel of Malfoy’s hand in his. 

He shook his head. "No. I'm fine. Let's do it."

"Okay, let me get some things together and we'll begin."

***

It took almost half an hour just to set up everything Jillian needed to complete the spells. She had Harry strip down to his pants and lay on a mat on the floor. She daubed essential oils on his forehead, his lips, and over his heart. She drew some kind of sigil on his breast bone using a brownish-red substance that smelt like compost, only worse, and then drew two more on him, one on the bottom of each foot. She gave him a glass of water and had him swallow three tiny stones – aventurine, calcite, and bloodstone. When he settled back into position, she set a small silver instrument on top of the sigil on his breastbone. Harry had never seen anything like it before, though it strongly brought to mind the collection of strange instruments that had inhabited Dumbledore's office.

Jillian sat back on her heels and examined her work. "Okay, I think we're good to go. You ready?"

Harry nodded.

"And you're sure you want to do this?" she asked.

Harry nodded again. "Yes,” he said firmly. “I need to know."

"Okay. You might hear and see some strange things, but don't be alarmed. None of these things can hurt you. You're perfectly safe." She gave him a reassuring smile. “Here we go.”

Jillian passed her wand over him, incanting in a sing-song voice using words Harry didn’t recognise. She walked around him in a circle, three times in one direction, then three times in another. Then she settled on the floor beside him, cross-legged. She put one hand on his forehead, and with her other she continued her wandwork. At first Harry didn’t feel anything, but then sensation crept in, a swirling pressure that seemed to start low in his stomach and radiated out through his torso and along his limbs. Shadows flickered in the periphery of his vision, seeming to grow and solidify, taking on frightening forms. When he turned his head to look at them, though, there was nothing there. Several times, he heard voices calling his name. They were unfamiliar and faint; it seemed as though they reached him from across a great distance. Twice, though, he heard them right up close, as if they had their lips to his ear, but when he snapped his head around to look, there was no one there but Jillian.

Though it went on for quite a while, Harry was still surprised when Jillian stopped incanting and set down her wand. He lay still on the ground until Jillian looked at him with a smile and told him he could sit up.

He pushed to sitting and looked at her expectantly.

Her smile broadened and Harry’s heart leapt into his throat.

She laid her hand on his. “You’re fine, Harry. Voldemort isn’t inside you. There’s no one in your body except you. No possession, no Horcrux, no living memory waiting to somehow manifest. It’s just you.”

For a moment, Harry was frozen. He replayed her words in his head, trying to make sense of them. Voldemort was gone. He was really gone. He was...Harry. Just Harry.

Jillian frowned. “You don’t look happy.”

Harry shook his head, feeling thick and slow like he was moving through water. “I just... If Voldemort isn’t in me, then...” Then why had it been so hard for him to sit with his friends at the Burrow? Why had their grief annoyed him? Why had he been so angry? Why had he wanted to hurt them, to hurt Ginny? And, oh god, why had he got half-hard from touching Malfoy’s Dark Mark? Why had he felt so drawn to it?

Harry stood abruptly, ignoring the wave of dizziness that washed over him. “I have to go.”

“Harry –” Jillian hastened to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and ran out the door.

***

He returned a few hours later. Jillian smiled when she saw him standing in the doorway.

“Sorry about before,” he said.

She waved away his apology. “It’s a lot to take in at once.”

She ushered him into the room but Harry didn’t take his usual seat. Though he’d calmed down enough to return, he didn’t think he could manage sitting.

“So now what happens?” he asked.

“Well, that depends.”

“On?”

“On whether or not you feel ready to go home,” Jillian said. “On what you think you need. Voldemort isn’t living inside of you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not in need of help.”

“Like a Mind Healer?” Harry asked, his heart sinking. 

“Something like that, yes.”

Harry frowned. “I don’t know. There’s so much I wouldn’t feel safe telling anyone.”

“Like what?”

“Like the Horcruxes and Voldemort and that. Too many people know already.”

“Well, what if you just kept talking to me about it?” Jillian asked. 

“But I thought you said I should speak to a Mind Healer?”

“Harry, I am a Mind Healer. My initial training back when I was your age was in Mind Healing. Granted, it’s been a long time since I’ve done that as my primary work but I’m certain I could help you. And I already know all about the Horcruxes and Voldemort, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“So then, what? I’d just come and meet with you about...?”

“About whatever you need to talk about.”

Harry tried to envision himself sitting in Jillian’s office talking about his parents dying or Sirius falling through the Veil or what it was like to walk to his own death. 

“I don’t know...”

“You deserve more of a life than you have right now. And not because you beat Voldemort, but because you’re a human being and you deserve the chance to live without so much suffering.”

Malfoy’s words echoed in his head: _But one day you’re going to have to talk to someone, Potter. It will eat you alive if you don’t and you deserve better than that. If there’s anyone who deserves a good life, it’s you._

“I suppose I could try it,” he said.

Jillian smiled, warm and genuine. “Great. Why don’t we meet tomorrow afternoon?” At his startled look, she laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ll take it slow. See how it goes.”

Harry nodded in agreement but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to be an hour of him and Jillian sitting in her office, staring at each other in perfect silence.

***

As it turned out, Harry discovered he had rather a lot to say. Not at first. At first they just sort of sat there while Harry mumbled a bit about how hard it had been at the funerals and seeing his friends grieve. He stuck to other people and normal, expected reactions to situations. He avoided all mention of the events of his birthday and the things that had brought him to St Mungo's in the first place. 

After a couple weeks of sessions like that, though, Jillian began to push him. Gently, but insistently. He resisted. A lot. Harry knew Jillian was frustrated with him and he was frustrated with himself, but after a lifetime of keeping it all in, he didn't know _how_ to let it out.

In the end, it was Malfoy who helped him move past the block, though he wouldn't have known it. Narcissa had continued to write to Harry after Malfoy's release. Not every other day, but once a week, he got a note from her. Her letters always detailed inconsequential things – the weather, plans for the upcoming holiday, benign current events. And she always closed with an update on Malfoy, who, by her accounts was healthy and well. She often made cryptic comments that alluded to a change in him, though, which aggravated Harry as he was never able to figure out exactly what she was saying. It was one of these statements that sparked a shift in Harry's therapy.

Narcissa’s most recent letter had arrived that morning. Harry had read it before arriving at Jillian’s office and it had agitated him. He didn’t realise how much until Jillian made a benign, if not exceptionally well-worded comment, and he jumped down her throat.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he barked. “It’s like you’re purposely going out of your way to confuse me!”

Jillian paused a moment, though she didn’t seem particularly upset at his outburst. "My words really sparked a strong reaction in you.”

"I just hate it when people couch things in vague language so it's impossible to know what they mean. Either say it so I can understand it or don't say it at all. But don't say it in this convoluted way and then expect me to understand."

Jillian nodded. “I can understand that. I’ll try to be clearer in the future.” 

Harry shook his head and sighed. "Sorry. It's not you. It's Narcissa Malfoy."

"Draco's mother?"

"She's been writing me letters, which is nice of her actually, but she keeps making these indecipherable comments about Malfoy. It's like she's waiting for me to _get_ something but I have no idea what it is."

"Have you told her that?"

"No. I don't respond to her letters."

"Why not?"

"I...I don’t think that's the point of them."

"Then what is the point?"

"I don't know. I think she wants to tell me something about Malfoy but without actually telling me, you know?"

"What do you think she wants you to know about Draco?"

"I don’t know – that's my whole point!"

"But leaving aside what she's said in the letter. Let's just work with the supposition that she, Draco's mother, wants you to know something about Draco. Something that, for whatever reason, she feels can't be said directly, what do you think that would be?"

"I don't know,” Harry ground out, frustrated.

"Okay. That's okay, Harry,” Jillian said in a soothing voice. “Let's just leave it for now. Though maybe we could talk a bit about Draco."

"Why?"

"Well, he's the only person you ever told about being a Horcrux. I think that's pretty significant. I'm interested in knowing what made him safe enough to tell."

Harry snorted at the idea of Malfoy being "safe."

"Let's start with something easy. How did you two meet?"

He told her about Madame Malkin's and he told her about the Hogwarts Express. He told her about flying lessons and the Remembrall and the detention in the Forbidden Forest. And as he narrated their history, he realised he was narrating also his own history, of all the hurts he'd sustained. And he knew that Jillian was guiding him, shaping the story of him and Malfoy so that it revealed more and more about Harry himself, but he found he could tolerate it. More than tolerate it, even. Though it was hard and it hurt, it felt good to say things out loud, too. 

From there, Harry was able to open up more and more. It was slow and it was painful but it helped, too. 

As February approached, Jillian returned to Canada. Harry went with her. He knew it probably looked excessive and maybe even unhealthy to others, but he also knew he wasn't done healing yet and he wasn't willing to tell anyone else about the Elder Wand, or about Horcruxes, no matter what Jillian said about knowledge outside the UK. Besides, he felt safe with Jillian and he could count the number of people he could say that about on one hand. He thought it would be good for him, too, to live on his own for a while, not hiding in the hospital. He wanted to be out in the world but he wasn't ready for his old life, for his friends and the public and the Ministry and all the other things that were waiting for him, impatient and full of expectations.

So he got a small apartment in the west end of Toronto, a quick subway ride to where Jillian worked. He saw Jillian for their sessions three times a week. He got a part-time job in a community centre, doing everything from washing towels to teaching indoor football. At first, he did it just to keep busy, but he found he liked it. He liked his neighbourhood and the people there. He liked seeing the families that came in, the children excited and too loud, the parents harried but invested. Caring. He made some friends. He even dated a little bit, both women and men. He never got too serious with anyone. The knowledge that he had a life back home waiting for him was always in the back of his head. 

He knew it wasn't forever, though it could be if he wanted it, as Jillian had pointed out to him more than once. But Harry knew differently. England was his home. The people he loved more than anything were there and he wanted to go back to them. And with each day that passed, each session with Jillian, he felt closer to being ready to do just that.

***

Harry didn’t tell anyone when he returned to England, not at first, anyway. He took a room in a hotel in Muggle London and stayed there for almost a week while he hunted for a flat. He wanted to settle himself in a home, to have a safe space that was just his that he could return to, no matter what happened. He took his time, finding a building that he felt comfortable in, a neighbourhood that was removed enough from the centre of Wizarding London that he could have some privacy but not so completely Muggle that he felt like he was in hiding. He went shopping on his own and picked out furniture, bedding, pictures, dishes, and dozens of other household items, letting the sales staff help him when he needed it but mostly using his own preferences as a guide. When the flat was finally ready he moved in, and, even though everything was new and unfamiliar, it felt like he had come home for the first time in his life.

Once he was settled, the first person he visited was Ginny. She had agreed to meet him in Hogsmeade for a butterbeer. He Apparated long before their set meeting time, unsure exactly how he would feel returning to the site of so much suffering. Walking through the sleepy little village was harder than he’d thought it would be. And it was easier. For all the bad memories, there were many good ones, too. And, really, that’s how life was going to be now that he was back in the UK; everywhere memories waited for him, but he knew he could handle it. He’d spent his time with his ghosts, and while he still might feel sad or angry, he was no longer lost to them as he’d been when he left.

He arrived at the Three Broomsticks early and found a table near the back. He nursed a butterbeer and watched the other patrons – mostly Hogwarts students – as he waited for Ginny. She blew in through the front door a few minutes later, her Gryffindor scarf around her neck, fat white snowflakes in her bright hair, her cheeks pink from the cold, and she looked so much like everything Harry loved in the world that it was all he could do not to run over to her and sweep her up in his arms. Instead, he waved her over with a cautious smile. She returned it, just as cautious, and sat down across from him.

For the first fifteen minutes, they sipped their drinks and chatted about nothing in particular – Ginny filled him in on the Gryffindor Quidditch team; Harry talked about his new flat. Eventually, though, they moved on to more serious topics – what had happened to him that day, why he’d left, why he’d kept everyone at a distance. He told her all of it, his growing anger, his grief, his fear, all the things he hadn't been able to face last summer. He told her about the hospital, about Malfoy and Jillian and Lisa... and Gil. He told her about Toronto and all the things he'd learned about himself. And he apologised. For hurting her, for leaving her, for not being honest with her, for shutting her out. 

Ginny didn't say much. She watched Harry carefully. Her eyes looked sad. She frowned often. Several times he thought she might cry, but she didn't. Several times, she turned away from him abruptly, as though she couldn't bear to look at him. But other times, she reached across the table and took his hand. Before she left, she let him hug her good-bye and she even hugged him back. When she walked out the door, the wind whipping her hair into a wild red tangle, Harry’s eyes pricked and stung. His wasn't sure if she'd forgiven him or was even on her way to forgiving him. He wasn't sure if they'd ever be friends again and the regret of that was like a stone in his chest.

It was easier with Ron and Hermione. Ron forgave him readily - though he was clearly angry about Harry's actions, he'd learned too much about human nature to let that get between them. For Hermione, there was nothing to forgive. Harry suspected that, had she been at the Burrow last summer instead of Australia, things might have happened very differently. She likely would have known Harry was headed for a breakdown before the first funerals even started. He was glad, though, that it had happened the way it had. He had needed to crash and burn, to sink so low and be so scared that he could speak the horrible secret fear that plagued him. He'd needed Malfoy, who expected nothing of him or from him, to hear that secret first. He needed Jillian to show him the truth of his fear and guide him through to the other side of it. Hermione would have done everything in her power to make him well, but because she was his friend and she loved him, it wouldn't have worked. 

He made the rounds slowly, visiting Andromeda and Teddy, the rest of the Weasleys, Neville, Luna, McGonagall, Hagrid. He went to Hogwarts and walked the halls. He stood on the Astronomy Tower and in the Great Hall. He visited Dumbledore's grave. He went to Godric's Hollow and visited his parents' graves. He visited Snape's grave. He saw all the people he needed to see, honoured the dead he needed to honour, said good-bye to the people he needed to say good-bye to. There was only one place he didn't go, one person he didn't see. One question he wasn't quite ready to know the answer to.

***

Harry knocked on the door of the flat and then took a step back. He jammed his hands in his pockets. He was nervous. It seemed stupid, after everything, to be nervous about this, but he was. Very much so.

He heard the sound of footsteps behind the door and then it opened, and Malfoy stood there looking whole and healthy and better than Harry had ever seen him look in his life. 

He also looked shocked. “Potter?”

Harry’s heart turned over in his chest. He gave Malfoy a half-smile. “Hey, Malfoy.”

“What are you –” Malfoy broke off, paused a moment, and started over, though he didn’t seem any less stunned to see Harry standing at his door. “I’d heard you’d moved to Canada.”

Harry shook his head. “No. Well, I did spend some time there, but it was only temporary. It was never permanent or anything.”

“How long have you been back?”

“A few weeks.”

“I suppose I should say welcome back, then,” Malfoy said, but his tone lacked any genuine welcome; mostly, he sounded wary.

Harry glanced inside Malfoy’s flat. “Do you think I could come in?”

Malfoy stepped back with a sweep of his arm, wordlessly ushering Harry in.

Malfoy’s flat was large – much larger than Harry’s – but surprisingly warm. It was decorated in earth tones, tans, browns, and greens, and full of personal touches. Framed photos lined the mantle. Artwork hung on the walls. The bookshelves held leather-bound books and neat rolls of parchment, but also things Harry recognised from their school days – Malfoy’s Slytherin scarf, a Potions kit, an old battered Snitch. 

Harry turned to see Malfoy watching him as he took it all in, the look on Malfoy’s face inscrutable. The quiet between them turned heavy, awkward, and Harry felt self-conscious and ill at ease. 

“I heard they caught your attacker,” Harry said, pleased when his voice came out sounding normal.

Malfoy frowned. “Yeah. It was Dolohov.” He waved a dismissive hand. “But really, it could have been any of them.”

Harry’s brow furrowed. “Are you safe, living here?” 

Malfoy shrugged. “As safe as anywhere.”

“I was surprised to hear you’d moved out of the Manor.”

Malfoy’s face darkened. “Too many memories. Few of them good.” He fell quiet for a moment, but then he shook his head and his expression cleared. “What about you? Where are you these days?”

“I’ve got a flat in London. It’s not big, but it’s just me, so I don’t need much.”

He watched Malfoy for a reaction to this information, but Malfoy continued to be difficult to read. Harry pressed on. “Anyway, I wanted to talk to you.”

Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up. “About?”

Harry took a breath. “About the Horcrux thing. About you telling Jillian.”

Malfoy’s face went pale, and he started speaking quickly. “Look, I knew it would make you angry, but I had to do it. I didn’t plan on it – I went to St Mungo’s that day just to see you.” Malfoy stopped, just a short broken pause, and his cheeks turned pink. Then he continued, his words coming faster. “To see how you were doing. And then I ran into Lisa and she said that you’d had a relapse. She, well, she made it sound like you were in really bad shape. And I know you said you’d rather die than have anyone know, but –”

Harry cut him off. “Malfoy, I’m not angry about it.”

Malfoy blinked. “You’re not?”

“No.” Harry shook his head and smiled. “I came here to thank you. And to tell you that you were right. There wasn’t anything wrong with me and I did need to talk to somebody. But I couldn’t do it myself. I needed someone to help me and you did, so I wanted to thank you.”

Malfoy was quiet for a long moment, apparently digesting the information. Then his eyes found Harry’s. While his face continued to give little away, his eyes were full of emotion, so much emotion that Harry felt the breath knocked out of him.

“So, no Horcrux, then?” Malfoy asked, his eyes locked on Harry’s.

Harry held his gaze, his heart pounding. “No Horcrux.” 

“And the Dark Lord?”

“Really dead.”

“And you, you’re...?” Malfoy asked uncertainly.

“Much better,” Harry said with a nod. “That’s what I was doing in Canada, with Jillian.”

“Oh.” Malfoy fell silent again. He dropped Harry’s gaze, his eyes on the floor. “So,” he continued after a moment. “Is that why you came here? To say thank you?”

“Yes. Or at least, that’s part of it.” 

Malfoy glanced up and quirked a brow at him. “And the other part?”

Harry took a deep breath. He could do this. “Remember that day when Gil showed up in his regular clothes, that grey jumper and those...” He trailed off, unable to make himself say it.

“Jeans,” Malfoy prompted.

Harry nodded. “Right. Jeans.” He could feel himself blushing.

“How could I forget?” Malfoy asked, seeming far too amused at Harry’s obvious discomfort.

Harry shot him a look. “ _Anyway_ , remember how you joked about me staring at him and I just…lost it?”

Malfoy grinned. “Yes, I recall something like that.”

“And you said that you wouldn’t tell anyone, but I didn’t believe you, and you told me I was an idiot?”

“Yes.” Malfoy nodded.

Harry took another steadying breath. “I’m hoping I’m not still being an idiot now,” he said.

And then he reached out and took Malfoy’s hand in his.

For a second, Malfoy froze, his fingers still and stiff in Harry’s, and Harry felt his stomach drop. He’d been wrong. Oh god, he’d been _wrong_...

Then Malfoy’s face split into a giant smile.

“Oh, Potter,” he said, laughing. “You are _always_ an idiot.”

Malfoy gave Harry’s arm a tug, using their joined hands to pull Harry closer, and then closer still, and then Malfoy’s lips were pressed against Harry’s, soft and warm and moving against his, and it felt better than Harry had ever thought a kiss could feel. Malfoy’s free hand found the back of Harry’s head, his fingers tangling in Harry’s hair as he deepened the kiss, parting Harry’s lips with his own. And then the world seemed to melt into a blur as Harry lost himself in it, the hot, wet slide of their mouths, the feel of Malfoy’s strong, bony hand in his, the warmth of Malfoy’s skin beneath his fingertips, the smell and feel and taste of him as they stood there in Malfoy’s entrance hall kissing until they couldn’t breathe. 

But they couldn’t stop, either, so Harry gasped against Malfoy’s open mouth while Malfoy panted into his and their hands roamed each other’s bodies, sliding over backs, shoulders, hips, and chests. Harry’s hand inched under Malfoy’s shirt, and he felt the smooth expanse of skin where the gaping hole had once been. He dropped his head onto Malfoy’s shoulder, suddenly overwhelmed.

“You’re really okay?” he whispered against the fabric of Malfoy’s t-shirt.

“I’m really okay,” Malfoy said gently. “You?”

“Yeah.”

And he was. Standing there in Malfoy’s flat, Malfoy’s hands moving across his back and Malfoy’s body pressed so tightly against his that he could feel both their heartbeats thudding against his ribs, Harry felt like finally, without a doubt, he really was okay.

~The End~


End file.
